Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State is aware that I am hoping to bring forward a Bill about digs regulation. It is still with the Bills Office, but I will bring it forward when I get it through. It is important and, to be honest, when I took over as spokesperson one of things that shocked me most was that there was no digs regulation. It obviously needs to be workable. You do not want to be pushing people out of providing digs accommodation. However, it is concerning that young women cannot lock their bedroom doors at night. That is really concerning.

My final question relates to apprenticeship money and the National Training Fund. From what I can see, €3.8 million from the National Training Fund was used for a once-off reduction of the apprenticeship student contribution. That obviously acknowledges that there are issues with using the National Training Fund in accordance what it is called and what it sets out to do, which is funding the costs of further training, education and skills. We have heard from the Irish Universities Association, IBEC, the American Chamber of Commerce, different political parties, including Sinn Féin, and just about everyone else with a stake in education, that they are not happy with the fund's idleness. Here we see it being used to fund a once-off reduction in costs of apprenticeship fees. Will the Minister of State explain how it could be used in that instance, and what specific problems exist with its governing legislation? If he has any specifics on what the relevant section of the legislation is, I would like to hear it. The governing Act is obviously particularly long and I would like to look into it further. A lot of the time people say it is difficult to access the National Training Fund for different reasons. However, from what I understand, €3.8 million was used to assist with the cost reduction of apprenticeship fees, so it is to get a better understanding of how that legislation exactly works.