Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am not sure that is entirely true. If we rewound to 20 years ago, when neither my party nor that of the Deputy was in government, and projected ahead, I doubt we would have projected the population of the country would be 5.2 million, as it is now. I doubt we would have projected we would have extended the opportunity of higher and further education to so many as we do now. I am thankful to say more people are accessing higher and further education than was ever the case before. They are doing so from a wider and more diverse range of backgrounds, especially non-traditional ones, than was ever the case before. Those are really good things but they have resulted in a shortage of student accommodation. We acknowledge that and that we must deal with it. One of the ways we are going to deal with that is by providing financial aid to universities and technological universities to unlock some of those purpose-built student accommodation developments so they can go ahead. The Minister, Deputy Harris, is working on that as we speak.

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