Mr. Paul Lemass:

Regarding the 5,000 beds during the pandemic, projects which were ready to go on site were given permission for construction to continue during the pandemic. Clearly, investors were spooked by Covid-19. People could not attend university for almost two years. It meant they built out what was there during the pandemic but after they stepped back to see what would stabilise. Then, of course, the inflation from the war impacted on that.. That is why the section was set up to focus exclusively on this area. Regarding when we will see output on the short-term activation programme, we will see 116 beds in Maynooth in September. They are already completed and taken over by Maynooth University. Separately on that programme, my colleague will comment on the UCD and DCU progress, where we have 493 and 405 beds, respectively. In the longer term, the technological sector student accommodation programme is at preliminary business-case stage, where individual HEIs have to set out exactly what their proposal is and get into a bit more detail, including on where they propose to develop their proposals. There was a question earlier about land. The long-term strategy will be completed in quarter 3 and will absolutely be informed by funding, which we are in the throes of negotiating at the moment as part of the national development plan negotiations. We agree with the Senator regarding affordability. Affordability and supply are absolutely linked and must be part of the thing. The Senator talked about the bus connection in north Kerry to Tralee.

Every year, we go out to five regional locations to work with the universities, ETBs and local authorities. We specifically want the local authorities in the room with us at each of those five locations. This year, we were in Waterford, Galway, Tullamore, Tralee and Dublin. In Tralee, there were stakeholders like UCC, MTU Tralee, MTU Cork, local authority representatives from Cork and Kerry - I am not sure who was there was exactly - and people from the ETBs. The whole purpose of that was to talk about capital works, share experience and facilities, and draw on the experience of the planners and demands of the universities so that there was a shared understanding of what was needed. We do that in five locations every year and we always pull in such people.

We work with the Department of justice on accommodation that has exited the sector. I know that the Kings Court complex in Tralee that was referred to has come back in. We believe as many as 1,800 units have come back into the sector. We have agreed a protocol with the Department of justice so that people cannot just be bidding against themselves and the unit has to be empty for a year before anyone can secure a contract for international protection or Ukrainian refugees.