Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I pay tribute to the local authority, the Minister and the Department for getting this development, which is the largest urban regeneration project in the country, to begin, paving the way for Waterford to enhance its offering as an attractive place in which to invest and enabling it to develop new transport solutions. This is great news and we are very pleased with it.

I take the Deputy's point in respect of student accommodation. I have been very engaged in this issue with the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Harris, and the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien. The institutes of technology never had the capacity to borrow but now, as technological universities, they do. A number of measures have been taken in the short term. We brought in a tax credit for renters that will apply to situations where parents pay rent for their child attending third level. In terms of accommodation, there has been a big viability gap between what colleges could build, and the cost they could build it at, and the rent at which it could be offered. The rent would be too excessive for students.

We have been examining ways and means of bridging that gap. The Minister, Deputy Harris, has set up a dedicated unit within his Department dealing with student accommodation. The staff have gone to all the institutions to identity whether there are short-term initiatives the State could take to underpin projects. We are looking for some early solutions in respect of accommodation. The Minister will bring a memorandum to the Government in the next number of weeks in regard to this initiative. We will then have to look at a more medium-term initiative for students in need, including, for instance, students in receipt of the Student Universal Support Ireland, SUSI, grant. There are state aid implications if the State intervenes to support the construction of student accommodation. We would need European Commission approval. That is being progressed. In the interim period, we are looking at four potential sites on which we could perhaps get initiatives under way to get badly needed accommodation for students in place.

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