Mr. Tim Conlon:

The institutions are autonomous bodies and they have to make decisions for themselves, including commercial ones, such as regarding the development of student accommodation and so on.

Of course, that can be challenging. If an institution develops student accommodation, there will be costs and it will have to maintain the loans and pay for them. When students are not in the accommodation, that can be challenging. We do not have any significant concerns. The institutions are reasonably well funded and well prepared, although we have just been through a global pandemic and the impacts of that have yet to be felt. The Government has been very supportive in one of the areas in which I am involved, namely, research. It has made an investment to support research students in order that their careers will not have been impacted, to support research projects and to keep the endeavours in institutions going. Supports have been put in place to keep institutions operational and providing services to students, but I do not know whether we have yet seen the overall impact of a global pandemic on the system. That is something we will have to watch carefully.