Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising the question. The first thing he would agree with me is that all roads out of Kerry should not lead to Cork or Limerick when it comes to getting a university education. The first thing I have done is to ensure that Kerry is now a university county and that Tralee is now a university town. This is an important point because the Deputy's constituents in County Kerry can now access a university education in the Kingdom, in Kerry. They could not do it before and could not have done it a couple of years ago; it can now happen. Kerry now has its own university, MTU Tralee campus. I want to build student accommodation and I want to help expand that Tralee campus. Munster Technological University has that campus in Tralee and provides a university option in Kerry for the first time. I welcome the great work of MTU in expanding the courses it is providing with even more courses now in Kerry, including investment in a new science, technology, engineering and maths, STEM, building, for which I recently turned the sod and which is now under construction.

The Deputy is right that we need to provide more student accommodation. Students have the right and may have the need to go outside their own county to access a university. Support of €1 million is being provided to our technological universities to undertake a needs assessment for the provision of student accommodation. My Department is also examining mechanisms to ensure the technological universities can borrow to build student accommodation. I believe this will help MTU in Cork and Kerry to build student accommodation.

I assure the Deputy, as I said in the House today, we are now investing taxpayers' money in building student accommodation. He mentioned Limerick. In November I got Government approval for €61 million to press "Go" on 1,100 student accommodation units. These are units that had planning permission but had not been built and needed taxpayers' money to make them viable. That includes accommodation in Limerick. My Department is working very closely with the University of Limerick and University College Cork to identify and assess potential projects in Cork and Limerick.

I would say to the Deputy's constituents that as they go back to college this year, while accepting the challenges they have, there are 938 more college-owned student accommodation beds this year than last year, including 255 of them in UCC, which he referenced. Over 2,000 privately funded beds are due to be completed and available this autumn.

See this speech in context