Carol Nolan raises alarm over worsening student accommodation crisis

Minister, my question relates to the ongoing issue of the shortage of student accommodation across the country. I know every year I feel that the problem is getting worse and certainly from my own constituency I'm getting huge numbers of students contacting me where they cannot source student accommodation in Galway, Dublin or Limerick. And it appears that unfortunately this situation and looking at the evidence available to us each September demonstrates that the situation is deteriorating rather than improving. And I'd just like to ask what measures are going to be taken by government to try and tackle this problem? Thank you Deputy Minister. Yeah, thank you very much Deputy. So I'm very aware of the high cost of student accommodation and the burden of places on students especially those from rural or more outlying areas. Although it's not limited to that because in urban areas including my own household my daughter was commuted to UCD for the last couple of years and that was not a short commute despite the fact we're not terribly far away geographically from the college. So there is an additional burden on students who have to make that commute or who cannot secure accommodation for those for whom it's a financial burden. The Student Accommodation Strategy, 25 to 2035 would set out Ireland's national policy to support access to appropriate housing and accommodation for students. And through that strategy I'm committed to expanding supports that directly address the affordability pressures facing students especially for those who need it most. So to give an example in the recently passed budget, budget 26 I secured an additional 10.5 million euro to increase all non-adjacent maintenance grants under the student grant scheme by at least 200 euro but in most cases by more. So that means all of the grants for people who are non-adjacent which means they live 30 kilometres or more away from the college all those grants have been increased and in some cases increased significantly and that is to reflect the fact that those students have an additional financial burden because they're travelling or they're having to pay for rent or accommodation. There is also, there are 30,000 students actually can avail of that and also the 30 kilometre itself is down from what was previously I think 45 so that actually is available to more students than ever before as well. My department also provides measures such as the 1960 anniversary the student assistance fund to students in particular socio-economic difficulties and I was particularly pleased to be able to announce just today that I'm increasing the student assistance fund again for the coming year by over 10.2 million bringing the student assistance fund which is a discretionary fund available to the welfare officers effectively in the colleges to support students across a range of additional costs and expenses that will now stand at 19.3 million for this academic year which is a record high in fact and exceeds the amount awarded even only last year so I'm committed to continuing those supports to target the supports of people that need it most and making sure that the cost of college is mitigated as far as it can be Thank you Minister Deputy. Good Minister, I thank you for your response and certainly while I acknowledge that there has been some incentives and some supports and that there has been some improvements unfortunately like the Susie grant hasn't been adjusted in line with the cost of living or the student accommodation you know in terms of those costs so I suppose that's unfortunate that it's not as I say in line with that but I mean we're seeing that over the past five years rents in both urban centres and in many regional towns have risen at rates far exceeding inflation or wage growth and in terms of the strategy the delivery of purpose-built student accommodation has fallen substantially short of actually what's required with only approximately 14,000 of the 21,000 beds targeted under the National Student Accommodation Strategy having materialised by 2024 and as a direct consequence thousands of students now rely on temporary and often unsuitable arrangements staying in family homes commuting long distances as you acknowledge or depending on the goodwill of relatives and friends and really we do need to tackle this issue and to be more ambitious in creating more student accommodation So yes, just to confirm and restate that the maintenance grants have increased significantly in some cases particularly those on the non-adjacent rungs of the grant system so that was something that was very important to me and something I was very determined to be able to do as well as that there's additional support for students with disabilities additional support for students with mental health challenges and the thresholds have increased to the highest ever level to the extent that 80% of households are now eligible for at least some form of grant support and of course the student fee itself has been permanently discounted by 500 euro from the base figure that I inherited at the start of this year so I think those are all positive steps The Technological Sector Student Accommodation Programme is one particular accommodation package within the Technological Universities and there were feasibility studies performed over the last two years and the Technological Universities were invited to some proposals which they have done and preliminary business cases are being examined in the new year to consider those projects and where they go next and just in terms of the I think we need to be as I said far more ambitious and deliver more student accommodation and I just want to point out that my concerns relate to the fact that when a young person from a rural background concludes that third level education is financially or logistically unfeasible the loss extends far beyond the individual society is deprived of nurses engineers teachers and researchers that we so badly need in Ireland I therefore ask the minister to address the specific the following points in his address our response to me what immediate supports or emergency measures is the department implementing this academic year for students who are currently sofa-surfing or living in unaffordable private rentals and will the government now give serious consideration to the introduction of rent controls or rent cap specifically for purpose-built student accommodation is the minister prepared to commit to a ring-fenced state-led programme of student bed construction and will he bring forward as a matter of urgency an inflation-adjusted increase in the SUSI maintenance grant and substantial reform and expansion of the rent-a-room relief scheme Thanks, debbie, so i am glad you mentioned the rent-a-room scheme because that is an important tax relief available so householders can earn up to 14,000 per year tax-free by renting rooms of students and that has actually been extended also to local authority tenants and just at the end of last month over 5,200 rent-a-room student beds were on offer in higher education institutions across the country so that is a very significant measure and in terms of the stock that's on hand and the deputy mentioned in your opening question at the level of delivery and one issue that is a concern to me is that there's almost 15,000 as student beds that have planning permission but have not actually moved to construction and then we need to look at the reasons for that might be and I think a lot of that it comes from viability so things like the VAT reduction on new apartment building and we look at the procurement supports that are there and looking at measures that we can use to stimulate and where appropriate there is funding in the system to make service sites available where the sites can be and they can be encouraged to put them into a use for student accommodation to try to get some of those 15,000 beds and a lot more unlocked and progressed.