Mr. Paul Lemass:

It is very disappointing when such properties are taken out of the sector. There is a need for flexibility, nonetheless, given pressures in other sectors as well. That is the reality of international protection, IP, and the beneficiaries of temporary protection, BOTPs. This is the reality of the accommodation situation they are in. We have a protocol with the Department of children. It will now move to the Department of justice . We will engage with them on a regular basis and we will highlight where there is a student need, and there absolutely is in all of these cases. Our preference would be that they remain in purpose-built student accommodation.

Looking forward, I can tell the Deputy that in the future the class of purpose-built student accommodation is an identified class for planning purposes. If one gets planning permission to build purpose-built student accommodation, that is what one must use it for. If the applicant wanted to get changes then he or she would need a change in planning. Heretofore that was not the case and it was too easy for developments to be used for different things. That would have changed once purpose-built student accommodation, PBSA, was designated as a specific class.

On the rent-a-room scheme, we absolutely believe in the potential of the rent-a-room scheme. It was going reasonably well before Covid and then during Covid obviously for health reasons people did not want to share rooms or houses and we did get a setback then. There has been a major effort since then to promote the rent-a-room scheme. We have collaborated well with students' unions locally and with local accommodation offices to promote the rent-a-room scheme. Every year the Department runs a campaign in August to make property owners aware, if they have a spare bedroom, of the potential of the scheme. In September, once the CAO offers are out and students know where they are going the campaign makes them aware that this accommodation is an option. Ms Nugent referred earlier to the survey we did. A significant number of students are residing in digs accommodation. It is an important part of the solution.

Deputy Feighan mentioned the Atlantic Technological University, ATU, campuses and their capacity. The HEA is working with the ATU and all of the technological universities. The technological university sector student accommodation programme works with all five of the technical universities to try to support them. It is taking a national horizontal approach in that they are all being developed together. That sometimes takes a little longer to get started but once we build momentum, as we have seen with the public private partnerships, PPPs, that are already commenced, it really does move at a reasonable pace.

The Deputy also mentioned travel. We have worked quite closely with the Department of Transport. Our Department does a regional engagement process every year where we go out to five regional locations. This year we went to Waterford, Galway, Tullamore, Tralee and Dublin. We met various stakeholders. We usually bring in the local authority, the education and training boards, ETBs, and the higher education institutes. Last year we also brought in representatives from the travel sector, including Local Link, because we wanted to work with them to help them understand from a university perspective and from an ETB's perspective the challenge that students were facing. We are very alive to that. We have also participated in the Department of Transport's moving together programme.