Ms Caren Gallagher:

As my colleague said, the higher education institutions, the universities and colleges, as well as the purpose-built student accommodation, since July 2019 that has to be registered with the RTB. We have proactively identified a lot of the student accommodation that was already there and, as we said, we publish that register.

I think that it is an important point to note that even if students are in one of these types of accommodation and they are being told that they are operating under a licence, they can bring a case to us and, regardless of what it says on the piece of paper, a decision will be made. If it is looking like a tenancy and acting like a tenancy then it is a tenancy. That decision will be made at the point of our dispute resolution.

There are developments in these areas in the purpose-built student accommodation. They are under our remit. The dwellings and the students within those dwellings are afforded all the protections under the Act.