James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I fully agree and share the Deputy's ambition for Maynooth. For that reason, I immediately made inquiries about progressing that project when I took office. A total of 116 student beds will come on stream this year in Maynooth. The university will be first to come out of that programme. I am also meeting the university president, Ms Eeva Leinonen, tomorrow. I will be visiting Maynooth for an event tomorrow, which the Deputy may also be attending, where I will meet the president. I have met her a number of times already and have engaged with a number of the principals of the student union at Maynooth. I am very mindful of that.

We have a two-pronged strategy. There is the student bed activation project which I already mentioned. That involved taking projects that were shovel ready and had planning permission but where a regulatory or cost issues arose and seeing if we could move them forward. That is what we have done here and in other colleges. There is also a longer term student accommodation strategy which is currently being drafted and on which I am very much focused. That strategy will introduce measures such as increasing supply of accommodation for students, reducing the cost of delivery using standardised design guidance, promoting the more efficient use of existing building stock and examining vacancy. We are trying to do more, faster and better.

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