I understand a decision on funding for the Waterford North Quays development is being considered by the Cabinet today. Will the Taoiseach confirm its status?

I understood the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, would be taking Leaders' Questions today and I wanted to ask about student accommodation. My question is about what is being proposed for the future, given that students have, to a large degree, been left at the back of the queue in terms of our accommodation crisis. Some students might have the choice of living at home but they are largely in the minority of those accessing third level. At best, it would be inconvenient for families who have the required economic resources. For those who need to travel for education, accommodation issues certainly are a personal life-limiting event.

The national student accommodation strategy from 2016, which runs for another two years, is a shared policy between the Departments of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science. Sadly, the strategy clearly is not up to the task. I refer to the particular accommodation crisis in Waterford. Bizarrely, despite the big plans that are forever in the future for Waterford's higher education sector, the Department's 2016 strategy models no additional student accommodation whatsoever for Waterford.

Waterford Institute of Technology, WIT - now the South East Technological University, SETU - was at the vanguard in developing its own student accommodation, with the College Fields development dating back to 1992. Great foresight was demonstrated by the college leadership at that time. It prudently borrowed to build enduring public resources for students, which, 30 years later, provide income to the college. In 2012, in the midst of construction work, the capacity for borrowing was taken away from WIT. This is a capacity that has enabled the building of accommodation in every other university in Ireland, including in Galway, Cork, Limerick and Dublin. Irish universities have more than €1 billion of debt at this time, much of it to the European Investment Bank, EIB. Little of it relates to funding accommodation for the new technological university, TU, sector. At this point, none of it relates to SETU.

Will the Taoiseach commit to revising the national student accommodation strategy? Will the Government reintroduce a borrowing capacity to SETU and end the discrimination within the third level capital funding capacity at present? Most importantly, will the Taoiseach support the building of badly needed student accommodation in Waterford to allow the expansion of college numbers that is so badly needed to end the brain drain in the south-east region? We need student accommodation that is tailored to student needs and to allow family homes that are inappropriately rented at this time to be returned to the rental sector and to private family use.

I thank the Deputy for raising this issue. He is correct that the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, was to cover Leaders' Questions today. I was not sure I would get back on time. I flew through the night to get here. I managed to get back for the Cabinet meeting and I then took the opportunity to come to the Chamber.

Did the Taoiseach pay carbon tax on the fuel?

Deputy Shanahan is correct regarding an announcement on funding for the Waterford North Quays project. It is a fantastic announcement, which the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, brought to the Cabinet today. The Cabinet approved the decision to invest, along with the local authority, more than €200 million in what is a groundbreaking project for Waterford and the North Quays public infrastructure.

Hear, hear.

I pay tribute to the local authority, the Minister and the Department for getting this development, which is the largest urban regeneration project in the country, to begin, paving the way for Waterford to enhance its offering as an attractive place in which to invest and enabling it to develop new transport solutions. This is great news and we are very pleased with it.

I take the Deputy's point in respect of student accommodation. I have been very engaged in this issue with the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Harris, and the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien. The institutes of technology never had the capacity to borrow but now, as technological universities, they do. A number of measures have been taken in the short term. We brought in a tax credit for renters that will apply to situations where parents pay rent for their child attending third level. In terms of accommodation, there has been a big viability gap between what colleges could build, and the cost they could build it at, and the rent at which it could be offered. The rent would be too excessive for students.

We have been examining ways and means of bridging that gap. The Minister, Deputy Harris, has set up a dedicated unit within his Department dealing with student accommodation. The staff have gone to all the institutions to identity whether there are short-term initiatives the State could take to underpin projects. We are looking for some early solutions in respect of accommodation. The Minister will bring a memorandum to the Government in the next number of weeks in regard to this initiative. We will then have to look at a more medium-term initiative for students in need, including, for instance, students in receipt of the Student Universal Support Ireland, SUSI, grant. There are state aid implications if the State intervenes to support the construction of student accommodation. We would need European Commission approval. That is being progressed. In the interim period, we are looking at four potential sites on which we could perhaps get initiatives under way to get badly needed accommodation for students in place.

It is very good news that the Taoiseach has confirmed funding for the North Quays development.

I extend sincere thanks to all my Oireachtas colleagues in the south east, in particular the Deputies from Waterford and Senator Cummins, and, most especially, to the Taoiseach, the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, and the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, and their offices. They have engaged with me constantly on this matter. It is a good day for the south east to see this project developing, and I thank the Taoiseach for that.

In regard to the national student accommodation strategy, I am mindful that the Minister for Health, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, told me a week ago that I never welcome anything. That is not the case. We have a deal of work to do and a road to travel and that is what I concentrate on. WIT had an excellent reputation for developing its own accommodation from 2012 onwards. We have lost much ground there. The Taoiseach stated the Minister, Deputy Harris, would bring a memorandum to the Government and the TUs could have a borrowing framework. Will he clarify whether that has been crystallised? Can TUs now access capital independently under a borrowing framework to deliver student accommodation and also the teaching buildings they need to deliver? We need a more appropriate strategy. I am absolutely committed to working with the offices of the Government to deliver that.

That is my understanding. That was a key ask, particularly to unblock the student accommodation issue. Some of the institutions have land but the schemes did not add up in terms of viability, as I said. That has slowed down much of the student accommodation in the past two to three years. The State has to get involved to bridge that viability gap. The Minister, Deputy Harris, is working on that. He established a dedicated unit which visited all the universities, both TUs and the more traditional universities, and it hopes to come forward with some interim solutions and then a more general scheme that supports State intervention to get more units built.

Some 670 new beds were provided this year and some will be delivered by the University of Galway later this year. This shows it can be done but it is clear the State has to get involved. The rent-a-room scheme has been effective. This is where people can earn up to €14,000 in rental income before having to pay tax. A lot of work went into marketing that scheme for this year’s student intake. It yielded some good results and the institutions promoted it strongly. We are looking at other ways to make that option more attractive. We have a lot of housing stock that is not optimally occupied. That is a good scheme as it incentivises people who might be in a three- or four-bedroom house on their own and can bring somebody in. It is a good use of existing housing stock and a quick way of getting extra stock in use.