John Connolly (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

I have a couple of questions based on the introductory statements. I hope I am reading the statements accurately. Has the unmet demand of 25,000 beds, which was projected in 2014, come to pass or could it be worse than that? One of the factors outlined in the 2014 strategy to drive the demand was the attraction of Ireland to international students. Anecdotally, that may have surpassed what we expected it to be, which places further demand on the system. Does the level of unmet demand at the moment exceed 25,000? I am concerned about that.

Do all third level institutions have accommodation offices and their own accommodation strategies? Do they have sufficient staff within the institutions to develop strategies and to provide the day-to-day assistance to students, in particular new students who are looking for accommodation?

Do we have any sense of whether the unmet demand is from new students? Is it all first years? Is there an advantage to being a returning student in terms of gaining access to accommodation? Is the burden more heavily placed on first year students attending a third level institution in terms of their inability to access accommodation?

Other than the short-term activation measures programme, do we have any sense of the existing capacity and landholdings of the third level institutions that could be put to use for student accommodation? Do we have any estimation of how many units could be provided?

I welcome the fact that the student accommodation strategy will be published this year. One of the issues the Minister, Deputy James Lawless, has consistently spoken about is a template for a standard design. Have we progressed that and will the strategy include it? Given the recent debate on minimum standards, will we now see an increase in the number of units that can be provided?