Magee cross-departmental oversight group being finalised with £152m committed to expansion of Derry campus

Transcript

00:00The interim report emphasises the need for a co-ordinated, cross-Government

00:03approach to achieve the expansion of McGee. It identifies asks for various departments,

00:11and I have written to my Executive colleagues to secure their commitment to achieving these.

00:15Progress is being made on the asks. For example, I recently announced my intention to provide

00:19access to tuition-free loans to graduate-entry medical school students here, in collaboration

00:25with the Department for Health. Officials are currently finalising their membership

00:28in terms of reference for the cross-departmental group, building on the ongoing engagement with

00:33departments. The Department for Health is already a member of the taskforce, for instance,

00:37and infrastructure officials will be presenting to the taskforce this week.

00:40The taskforce is, of course, to produce the final action plans by the end of the year.

00:48Minister, thank you for that answer. Will the oversight group publish regular updates

00:53on the progress, and if there are any barriers or blockages, will they be brought directly

00:59to the Executive so that we can overcome any issues quite quickly?

01:05As the Member knows, the commitment to 10,000 students at McGee is now part of the programme

01:11for government. Therefore, that means it is a whole Executive commitment. It is my intention,

01:16as I said, to raise with the Executive colleagues the report and what asks are contained within it,

01:21and to ask that they engage with it. As I said, a lot of departmental officials are already

01:25engaging there, and that has been very productive so far. Of course, if there are

01:31issues that arise that present obstacles or barriers, we will want to address those as

01:35quickly as possible. I will look, if that needs to be done, to my Executive colleagues

01:38to support us in doing that.

01:43Minister, how much funding has been committed to the McGee expansion so far?

01:49To date, £152 million has been committed to the McGee expansion. That includes £38 million from

01:57the Shard Island fund for a new teaching block, as well as investments from CityDeals and the

02:01Inclusive Future Fund and Ulster University's own reserves. Additionally, in 2024-25, budget

02:08for my department included £4.1 million in resource funding and £14.7 million in capital

02:13funding for McGee's expansion. Those funds have been used to support additional student places,

02:18enhance the physical environment, carry out communications and marketing activities,

02:22and acquire land and buildings.