Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am happy to come back on that issue and engage with the Deputy. There needs to be absolute clarity on that. I want to deal with the student accommodation question first.

I am actively aware of and working to address the difficulties faced by students. While I understand the Deputy's question refers to a lack of agreement on Government support, I have to make the point that this is the first time in the history of the State that the Government has intervened directly, for better or worse, to part fund, with taxpayers' money, the building of student accommodation.

Fundamentally, the challenge of student accommodation is one of housing supply more generally. Obviously, the outbreak of war in Ukraine has compounded the impact of Brexit, Covid-19 and the cost of construction. We are all familiar with these things. The higher cost of finance has also contributed significantly to the overall cost of new projects. A number of higher education institutions had to pause their student accommodation projects as a result of these challenges.

To assist in restarting the projects, on 29 November 2022 I secured Government approval to develop short and medium-term policy responses to activate a supply of affordable student accommodation. These landmark policies will, for the first time, see the State providing financial support for the construction of student accommodation. They will ensure the increased availability of and promote greater access to student accommodation.

The short-term focus is on projects where planning permission is in place and designs are at an advanced stage. The Government has approved funding support to develop accommodation for students of the University of Limerick, Maynooth University and the University of Galway. These projects were not undeveloped due to a lack of agreement on Government support; rather my proposal now enables these universities to reactivate the projects that were stalled. Those projects have been approved by the Government and we need to get on with it.

My Department is also working with the Office of the Attorney General to address EU state aid requirements. As the Deputy will know, two other universities, namely, Dublin City University, DCU, and University College Dublin, UCD, had advice planning permissions and their projects have been paused. I have had two meetings with each university in the course of the last month and I expect to be able to update the Government on how I believe we can move forward on this project shortly. I am pleased to tell the Deputy that Trinity College Dublin, TCD, recently received planning approval for an accommodation project and we are now engaging with the university. I am engaging with six universities. Three of the projects are over the line in terms of funding as of November, namely, DCU, UCD and TCD. In parallel, we have allocated €1 million to the technological universities to come up with their plans.

See this speech in context