Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Everything Mr. Dunne said is incredibly encouraging. If the amendments on Committee Stage of the Minister's Bill are the route to go, we will have no difficulty, subject to our seeing the detail. That the Department is giving a commitment that there will be equality between students in the public and private sectors is welcome. My party and a number of others have made clear that while we want to make sure that legislation is scrutinised properly, we do not want to do anything to delay it. We are keen as a committee to work with the officials to get the Bill, in the round, through as fast as possible and without necessarily undermining our right to scrutinise it.

I have two questions for the officials from the Department of Education and Skills. With regard to the construction and planning pipeline, could they give us a breakdown on the ratio between public and private? There is currently a ratio of approximately 2:1. For every public bed space in student-specific accommodation, approximately two are private. Is this ratio been replicated in the overall pipeline at the minute or is there any balancing thereof?

I ask to be corrected if I am wrong in contending there are restrictions on the borrowing of institutes of technology. They are keen to try to see some way through that. An example concerns some of the smaller institutes of technology, which face particular accommodation bottlenecks. Could I have an update on what is happening with respect to that?