Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)

Now that we have dispensed with that response, could we just tease out really where we are going in terms of student accommodation in this country? Are we going to learn from what we did with housing and HAP, which was an absolute disaster, and where we have put in literally millions and billions of euro to keep the market price of homes very high? We have done the same as regards students. I am sure Deputy Collins has an opinion as a Minister of State. I come from a city with two universities and four hospitals. I am proud to be a Galwegian and I am proud of what we have there, but we have a major housing crisis, partly contributed to by the failure of the two universities to provide campus accommodation. Can we learn at this point where we are? When will the strategy be published? It was due last July. Is there a change?

The other thing from ATU in Galway, which the Minister of State mentioned earlier, is that it wants the ability to borrow. It has been deprived of that. It has been discriminated against compared with the more established universities. He said a decision has not been made. When will it be made? Most importantly, to tease this out, the obvious answer is to provide accommodation that is State-owned so we can give it out at affordable rents to students.

See this speech in context