Mr. Jim Miley:

I will come back to that before handing over to my colleague, Mr. Casey. It is recognised that if the universities had not provided student accommodation over recent years, the student accommodation crisis would have been much worse. We have provided approximately 15,000 places. If one examines the model used by universities, one will see that the money to build blocks of accommodation is almost exclusively borrowed. The eight universities we represent have borrowed almost €800 million from the European Investment Bank. As the universities are run on a not-for-profit basis, any surplus that is made is ploughed back into refurbishing older blocks or building newer blocks. Obviously, building costs have increased. That directly reflects the current situation. The universities are not-for-profit institutions. They are not by any means looking to generate significant surpluses out of this. If one looks at the profile of recent developments, one will see that the cost of building blocks of student accommodation has escalated dramatically in the past three or four years.