Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome this approach because we have wanted to have it for so long, in the sense of there being an investment and recognising student accommodation is integral to access to third level. This is especially so for students from rural areas who cannot go to college without having accommodation. However, a decade of underinvestment in higher education has left us with this chronic lack of student accommodation. The plan to part-fund only 667 student beds does not go far enough because of the extent of the problem, particularly in the last 12 months, but also for years beforehand. Due to the chronic underinvestment in third level, we have an accumulation there to address. It does not reflect the scale and severity of the housing emergency. As the Minister said, there are more than 3,000 student beds sitting on the shelf due to the lack of Government support. Dublin City University, DCU, has had 990 additional beds with planning permission since 2019. That is a significant number of beds in the Dublin area and this needs to be the first step in what the Minister is doing. I want to see what other progress we can expect in that area. When will the accommodation be available for students, who are in a dire situation?

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