Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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37. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he will provide an update on student accommodation. [14516/25]

James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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Through the new Student Accommodation Strategy, which is in development, my focus will be on increasing the supply of student accommodation to benefit students and also to free up private rental homes.

I will focus on a combination of digs accommodation, examination of vacant property, and the development and leasing of purpose-built student accommodation. I will also examine sustainable transport alternatives to accommodation close to campus.

The outcome of the Standardised Design Study and the Technological University Student Accommodation Programme will provide a framework of delivery models and funding options to inform the new Strategy. The reports from these studies are expected in early 2025. I intend on delivering the Strategy in Q2 2025.

In tandem with the strategy development, additional measures have been progressed to address challenges in the short term. The Government approved €100m in capital funding from the National Development Plan, to activate projects with planning permission that had stalled due to cost and viability challenges. The Maynooth University project is currently onsite with expected delivery for the 2025-26 academic year. Of the 116 beds under construction, a percentage of the beds will be ringfenced for our target group of students. Separately, the DFHERIS ‘digs’ promotional campaigns which ran in 2023 and 2024 led to a signification increase in beds listed by higher education institutions for students. Currently, there are around 4,000 digs beds being advertised by HEIs.