Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have had a number of engagements with UCD students' union. I have no issue meeting with that body. I will certainly ask the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to meet with those students also. I am sure he will have no issue doing so either.

The reference to state aid rules related to the fact that private developers could say they can build accommodation too. I am trying to change the model. I genuinely believe we need to have more publicly funded institutions owning their own accommodation. I really believe that. To be quite honest, during the Covid pandemic, we saw the benefit of having people in college-owned student accommodation when they got refunds quicker, in some cases, than those who were not. We need to build more college-owned student accommodation. In a housing emergency, it is not acceptable that we have publicly owned land with planning permissions that have not been activated. We have activated three of them this week. Five were not activated but we activated three of them. Two of them are large, UCD and Dublin City University. They are genuinely engaging very constructively, for which I thank them, and we are trying to find a way forward.

We have a new policy framework. We can rightly debate the details of it but the approach we are now taking to student accommodation is different and better. It is overdue but it will make a real difference.

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