Joe McHugh (Donegal, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for his question. This year alone, my Department will spend in excess of €400 million on access measures for further and higher education students. This includes circa €380 million on student grants and related activities, which is expected to benefit approximately 78,000 further and higher education students. In terms of access initiatives, under the national access plan approximately 16,000 students are expected to be assisted in 2018 through the student assistance fund at a cost of €9 million, whereas 12,000 students are expected to be assisted through the fund for students with disabilities at a cost of €10 million. Approximately 400 students will benefit from the 1916 bursary fund under the programme for access to higher education, PATH, at a cost of €2 million.

The national student accommodation strategy, NSAS, was published in July 2017 to enable an enhanced supply of student accommodation as part of the Rebuilding Ireland action plan. It set a target of 7,000 additional purpose-built student accommodation bed spaces to be delivered by the end of 2019 and construction of at least 21,000 bed spaces by 2024. This initial target is expected to be exceeded, with over 10,000 bed spaces either completed or on site as of October 2018. The Government is also developing measures to provide better rent predictability in purpose-built student accommodation in the forthcoming residential tenancies (amendment) Bill.

Finally, the block grant paid to higher education institutions includes a specific weighting to promote access to higher education. This involves an additional premium for all eligible access students. This takes account of the cost of additional measures to support the enrolment and retention of students from under-represented backgrounds. For those from targeted socioeconomic groups and mature students, this is applied for the first two years of course duration to reflect the higher support needs during this period. For people with disabilities, a further weighting is applied for the entire length of the course to reflect the higher support resources required.

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