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

Go raibh maith agat. I am aware I have six minutes so I will go as fast as possible. I wish to start by touching on the housing aspect. The report undertaken by UCD was a good one. It highlighted the impact of this issue. We previously discussed student digs and potential regulation in this regard.

There is also a potential impact on people coming in to provide the digs. I had a good conversation with someone from the students' union in Galway yesterday about the impact of digs. She told me people are sometimes getting kicked out in the middle of the night. Those are horror stories. People obviously have nowhere else to go because of the housing crisis, so there is that concern. The USI has called for regulation. I am concerned about young people being in those kinds of precarious situations. I understand where the Minister is coming from on this but when the cost-benefit analysis is being weighed up, is it not important to have regulations? I believe it is, because what are young people who do not have family in the area or anybody they can rely on supposed to do in situations like getting kicked out in the middle of the night?

The second aspect with respect to housing is third-level institutions that have shovel-ready projects. Does the Minister know how many there are, in bed capacity terms? Perhaps he could provide us with a breakdown by third-level institution afterwards. What are the main barriers for institutions that have shovel-ready projects they have not proceeded with?