Mr. Paul Hannigan:

If I could pick up on that, it is a very strong point. Even though the fees are higher in Northern Ireland, the availability of accommodation is a real attraction for people going there. My son went through Queen’s University and the day after he got an offer for that university, he got an offer for accommodation as a first year student. That took huge pressure off the family in terms of getting over that hurdle of finding suitable accommodation. That has become a real attraction for students from the South, going North. They are treated as international students, so they get preferential treatment in terms of the accommodation as well which is really good.

Going back to the guidance counsellors issue, they do a fantastic job in a very tight window. They are trying to get the UCAS applications in just before Christmas and the CAO applications in before 1 February, and the same students are probably applying to both systems, particularly in the Border colleges as pointed out by the statistics in the report I made. While the guidance counsellor issue has been raised in all the reports, we have to recognise the work they do already and maybe support them more in that space and look at how we can drive that even further.

In terms of the Brexit issue, if you look at North-South over a 30 year period and the movementof students, it has been fairly stubborn in terms of the numbers. There have been ups and downs at different stages but it has been fairly consistent over a period of time. The big issue that is breaking it at the moment is accommodation. People are looking specifically at that because there is newly built student accommodation right beside the new campus of the University of Ulster. It is right across the street from it. That is a huge attraction for first year students specifically going to any location. It is far more difficult to source accommodation in the city locations in Ireland, even in Letterkenny, where I am based. It is really difficult to get accommodation for students at the moment.

As I mentioned in my opening remarks, it is the factors outside of the power of the institutions that are driving the trends currently and we need to keep an eye on that.