Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I certainly will do that. I agree that the student accommodation piece on campus is, of course, about student accommodation, but it is about mental health, well-being, development, the college experience and reassurance, perhaps for the parent, to know that the student has safe accommodation on campus near where he or she is going about his or her business and education.

It is my intention to make sure that all college projects for student accommodation that have planning permission have received sanction to move forward in some manner or means this year. That is what we are trying to do. We have three left, UCD, UCC and Trinity, that have potential. All the rest, DCU, Maynooth University, NUI Galway and University of Limerick, got the go ahead already from us over the past few months.

My next plan - we are doing this in tandem - is to get colleges that have no plans to get their act together in terms of getting their own planning permission, for example, the technological universities. I want to work with the technological universities to provide them with €1 million this year to develop their plans so that we will have a pipeline, that, frankly, we have not had previously, of taxpayer-funded college-owned student accommodation projects into the future.

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