Ms Josephine Feehily:

I agree with all of that. Building affordable student accommodation will be a challenge in the current market and would require a fair degree of creativity on the part of the TUs. As we discussed with Deputy O’Callaghan, the student base at TU Shannon is 60% SUSI grant supported. For that cohort of people, the housing would need to be designated as social housing to attract all the Government social housing supports. This would be another way of assisting the development of student accommodation in our catchment area; I am not speaking for the other TUs in terms of the social piece. Otherwise, if we simply borrow and build, our students will not be able to afford that accommodation no matter how creative we are in terms of how many we fit in and how we design. It is as simple as that.

In recent years, we have seen the development of a student body that is heavily dependent on public transport. These students are going home or couch-surfing. This does not create the student centre that Mr. Deenihan mentioned. Accommodation is not just about having a place to sleep; it is also about building a culture for the TU among the student body so that students are not arriving exhausted and going home in the evening. They do not join societies because they cannot. There is a cultural piece and a well-being piece, and all of that is connected with having good housing, but it also has to be housing that can be afforded.