Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I take that point and I want to say one thing on the record of the House in the hope that it is helpful. The Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth has confirmed to my Department that no contract has been entered into with the owners of the properties in Sligo, which were previously used as student accommodation, for the provision of emergency accommodation for the upcoming academic year. In addition, the Department has also confirmed that it has no plans to acquire this property into the future. I say that to be helpful to everybody locally.

I thank Dr. Orla Flynn, the president of ATU. She is working extraordinarily hard on this issue and also on that bigger issue of student accommodation. I want to be clear that we want to see Sligo and the ATU being able to develop student accommodation. We want to see it happen at pace and that is why we are doing a project called "standardised design". As we start to invest in and build new student accommodation across the country we should be making it much quicker to pull the design if it works in Sligo, and then it could also work in Tralee, Athlone and Carlow, and we should get on with it. In 2024 we can make real progress in student accommodation in the regions.

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