Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

And definitions. I thank the Senator.

Senator O'Mahony referred to student accommodation. The USI is holding a briefing today, and I apologise that I have not been able to make it. This issue was raised yesterday by Senator Gallagher as well. May I refer the House to a number of figures? In Dublin we now have 6,180 accommodation spaces specifically for students under construction; in Cork we have 603; in Galway we have 429. In Cork, Galway, Limerick and Kildare, 2,904 bed spaces are being constructed. The important point is that the Higher Education Authority, HEA, commissioned a report on student accommodation in 2017, and we must recognise and accept that there has been a huge rise in the number of students participating in further education and it will increase. The other point that Members should recognise is that students now prefer to reside in on-campus accommodation. This is part of the mistakes we made in the past whereby we did not build student accommodation and we are now playing catch-up. Many of us benefitted from going to college, and I would thoroughly recommend going to college to all students, if they can, and certainly living away from home.