Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I propose to take Questions Nos. 89, 98, 100, 102 and 132 together.

I thank the Deputy for the question on housing and student accommodation. The first thing this Government must and will do is to be honest that we need a new and better model for student accommodation. Yes, we have seen the supply - and I can ream off statistics - of purpose-built private student accommodation significantly increase, but that is not the point. We have not seen a pipeline of significant scale of college-owned affordable accommodation.

I have engaged directly in the Deputy's own county, with University College Cork and Munster Technological University. I have engaged with the Irish Universities Association, IUA, the Technological Higher Education Association, THEA, the representative bodies, and the Union of Students in Ireland, USI. Crucially, I have also engaged with the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage on the issue. We have established a working group, chaired by my Department, working with housing and university and college stakeholders to try to devise a new model to build college-owned affordable student accommodation. I hope to be in a position to outline that model early in 2022. We have asked the universities and the institutes of technology to prepare a pipeline of projects on the understanding that a new model that will address some of their concerns is forthcoming.

As I indicated earlier, if at all possible, we should look at some of the cost-rental models the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage is bringing forward, and see if there could be a tailor-made or a version of that that would work for the third level sector. I am very happy to hear the Deputy's feedback. I should also say that tomorrow I will meet with student union presidents from across the country online - all of them are invited - to talk about the issue of student accommodation and get their feedback and views, too.

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