Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The reduction under subhead C4 reflects a transfer to subhead B12. The provision is all being kept within research activity. It is just a recategorisation and relates to moneys for the Irish Research Council, IRC. There is no net reduction in expenditure.

There is a good deal to go through on student accommodation. I will give the Deputy a high-level summary. As of November 2023, the total provision of purpose-built student accommodation stock stood at approximately 48,000 bed spaces. A total of 8,512 purpose-built student accommodation beds have been constructed since January 2020. Of those, 2,195 are public and 6,320 are private. Of the 2,195 public beds, 1,021 became available in 2023, comprising 674 in the University of Galway, 225 in UCC, nine in Trinity College Dublin and 83 in the University of Limerick. Construction of 456 private purpose-built student accommodation beds is completed, with a further 97 to open for the second semester of the 2023-2024 academic year.

With regard to the short-term activation, €61 million was approved in principle to unlock development of approximately 1,000 beds across a number of HEIs for delivery at the beginning of 2025, as we discussed previously. Some 30% of these units are to be made available at below market rates for the target cohort of students who need assistance.

DCU and Maynooth have completed their due diligence assessments and are progressing through a tender process; Maynooth is at the final business case stage and DCU is at the tender stage. It is anticipated that the universities of Limerick and Galway will shortly complete due diligence assessments of their projects. We have a grid that gives information on the planning permissions for bed spaces.