Mr. Paul Lemass:

I will take the early ones and then hand over to Mr. McCaffrey. On the scale of the gap that was estimated at 25,000, I mentioned earlier that the response to that was working quite well. Some 10,000 units were provided up to 2019. That was knocked back a bit when Covid hit. That is why the unit was set up. We are trying to respond to that now. We are still working on the modelling for the next ten years – from 2025 to 2035 – and that will feature in the long-term strategy. It is not quite ready yet. There is clearly a growing demand. We have introduced the technological universities since the initial analysis was undertaken, so that will undoubtedly increase the level of demand. That is something that will feature in the long-term strategy.

Generally speaking, a university would either have an accommodation office or the students union would handle queries relating to accommodation. Not all universities have a dedicated accommodation office. We have put aside €1 million in the Estimates to support the development of accommodation capacities within HEIs, because we want them to have that capacity.

I do not have stats on returning students but perhaps Mr. McCaffrey could help there. Nor do I have stats on the landholdings.

It is absolutely the case that we want standardised designs to be used. The feedback we have been getting from students is that, in some cases, the accommodation is perhaps more than they want and something more modest would be adequate. The standardised design work has looked at things like the use of en suite bathrooms and the size of kitchen-living-dining areas, and there is more work to come on that. Section 28 planning guidelines will be issued to ensure that, when applications for planning permission are made, they are made with the new guidelines in mind. We hope that reducing the space requirement will impact on the cost and that in turn will impact on affordability.