Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this matter and I will ask the Minister for further and higher education to look specifically into that issue she raised. I take the importance that she made of the particular issue around the Gaeltacht and supporting the Irish language and Irish language guidelines as well. The Deputy and I had these exchanges before in my last role but I believe where we need to get to is much more State-owned or university-owned accommodation. I am sure we will all be putting forward our proposals as to how we can ramp that up. It is the way to do this. There will always be some private accommodation and that is fine but we need to have much more university-owned and taxpayer-invested student accommodation. We have started that process and I hope that together, we can achieve a lot more in the years ahead.

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