Ceisteanna ó na Comhaltaí Eile - Other Members’ Questions
Dail Éireann — 2025-11-12
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Maeve O'Connell (FG), Dublin Rathdown

I thank the Taoiseach. I am delighted to hear that he was a fellow tea-drinker as well. As a Corkman, I have to assume that is good old Barry's Tea too. I welcome that.
I also support our investment in research but I do not see that it is a trade-off. We need to invest in our students, but the cost of education can encourage students to work more hours and damage their education.
There is another opportunity that I would like to ask about relating to the whole area of student accommodation. We have extended the 9% construction rate VAT to student accommodation but there is another opportunity we have in that regard. Recently, I visited TU Dublin, my former employer, to discuss the challenges it and other technological universities are facing. The team there identified two potential locations for building student accommodation. One is in Grangegorman, which is quite a small site overall, and a major site in Blanchardstown. However, they are lacking borrowing capacities and without this have no chance of being able to develop these sites. What is the timeline for the establishment of this borrowing framework, which is a commitment in the programme for Government, to enable the technological universities to get on with building accommodation for students and apprentices?

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-11-12/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-21T01:01:05+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-11-12