The COVID-19 pandemic forced many higher education institutions (HEIs) across the world to cancel face-to-face teaching, close campus facilities, and displace staff and students to work and learn from home. Given the persistent nature of the pandemic, many HEIs have continued to deliver courses online and/or use a blended learning approach. However, there are concerns around differences in student access to digital learning resources while at home, including high quality broadband connectivity. This is important, since variation in connectivity may impact the type of online/blended model that faculty can deliver or constrain student engagement with online content. In this context, this paper combines national data on the domiciles of students enrolled in Irish HEIs with detailed spatial data on broadband coverage to estimate the number of higher education students ‘at risk’ of poor access to high quality internet connectivity. Overall it finds that one-in-six students come from areas with poor broadband coverage, with large disparities by geography and by HEI. It also finds that students from the poorest broadband coverage areas are more likely to be socioeconomically disadvantaged. As a result, this paper recommends that HEIs use their detailed registration data to help identify and support at-risk students. In particular, the results suggest that some HEIs may need to prioritise access to campus facilities and services to less well-off students living in poor broadband coverage areas.

This paper examines the determinants of residential gas demand in Ireland using a micro econometric analysis of the daily gas consumption panel data from Ireland's Smart Metering Gas Consumer Behavioural Trial. It also investigates the effectiveness of the demand side management stimuli that were tested during the Smart Metering Trial. The analysis is based on a sample of 1,181 households over 539 days. The results provide evidence that weather, together with the structural characteristics of the dwellings and the socio-economic characteristics of the households, are significant factors in explaining residential gas demand.More specifically, weather is found to be the most influential factor on household's daily gas consumption. Finally, the demand side management stimuli employed in the Smart Metering Trial were found to reduce daily household gas use on average.

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