What the TDs said

A selection of quotes from last week's Dail debate on student poverty and the accommodation crisis.

"Students traipse around the city night after night looking for accommodation, often dingy, damp, dirty, filthy, vermin-ridden bedsits which should be condemned and bulldozed into eternity."

Enda Kenny (FG)

"It is absurd that someone 18 years of age is paid £67 per week unemployment assistance whereas someone who commits themselves to a course of study ends up being paid less than half that amount in a student grant."

Eamonn Gilmore (DL)

"It is a pity the Minister was not present to hear the extraordinary praise heaped upon him in the last hour. Nobody in Irish history has been praised more except perhaps Daniel O'Connell. It is said that people faint at the sound of the Minister's name in every part of the country."

Michael D. Higgins (Lab) after a succession of Fianna Fail backbenchers eulogised Micheal Martin

"The abolition of third level fees] has not helped a single child from the most disadvantaged groups in our society to attend a higher education institution...By definition this was an initiative which would very specifically target resources at the better off sections of society."

The Minister for Education, Micheal Martin

"The number of children from disadvantaged areas who make it to third level is shockingly low. If we are serious about creating a just and inclusive society, removing this inequality must be a priority."

Brian O'Shea (Lab)

"I am aware of a case where a student sleeps on a couch in a bedsit in which two other people share a double bed. The students pay £30 each per week for this accommodation. One would think students were living in shanty towns in a Third World country rather than in the capital of the tiger economy."

Denis Naughten (FG)

"The boy Minister and the half-boy Minister for State . . ."

Deputy Ruairi Quinn's description of the youthful Micheal Martin and the diminutive Willie O'Dea