Aubrey McCarthy (Independent)

Last Friday, Tiglin, the men's centre in Ashford, had a great event where we marked a milestone which deserves recognition in this House. We celebrated a partnership with South East Technological University, SETU, which was an education project for the past three years that was put together by the former Minister for higher education, Deputy Harris. It was a celebration of lives transformed not only through education but also through education when it is pinned with recovery. Last Friday's event was attended by the Minister, Deputy James Lawless; Dr. Helen Murphy from SETU; and Dr. Victoria Brownlee from the Higher Education Authority. We witnessed many people sharing their stories on how education directly impacted their recovery journey. When education meets recovery and meets people where they are at, it makes a huge difference and gives them tools to build a better future. In just three years, more than 315 people came through the SETU Tiglin programme. For many of them, it was their first qualification ever. Some of them managed to get a master's degree during that time. It shows again that addiction does not define the individual. You can see the potential and it shines through. This initiative is a blueprint to scale for socially impactful education. It shows what lifelong learning can look like when it is in action. It is breaking cycles of disadvantage, marginalisation and vulnerability, and restoring dignity and hope. I give a huge shout-out to the team at Tiglin, to the team at SETU under Professor Veronica Campbell for their vision and commitment, and to the Minister for higher education for being there to support it. I hope he will continue to support it going forward. If we are serious about tackling addiction, homelessness and social exclusion, education has to be at the very heart of our response.

I also want to mention infrastructure. I know it has been raised before, but I must mention the queues faced by thousands of people as they commute to Dublin on the N7, which I travel on. It is also happening around Galway. The N7 is a vital artery connecting Dublin with the midlands and the south, but it has become a bottleneck of absolute frustration. Many people are spending more time in their cars on the N7 than at the dinner table with their families. It is not just an inconvenience; it is a matter of national competitiveness and quality of life. We need urgent investment in road upgrades, we need intelligent traffic management and we need to expand public transport. The N7 cannot remain the bottleneck that it is. It has to be restored as a functional route. We have made inroads into road infrastructure but the population is increasing so there is a need to do much more.