Matt Shanahan Demands Action on Student Accommodation Strategy

Farrah, firstly congratulations to you and your wife on the new addition to your family. My question relates to the National Student Accommodation Strategy and the status of it now given that the last report was in quarter three of 2019. Why has this accommodation strategy died, Minister, and if it's not dead it has certainly been left with her on the vine. We had an action plan and why has it been dropped? Looking at Watford, the plan appears to me to take no action. The goal of government appears there was to be no additional student accommodation provided in the city beyond what had already been developed. A number of years ago, the department was instrumental in disassembling WIT's capability to deliver student accommodation, most notably by removing its borrowing capacity. Having done that, the department has provided nothing in exchange by means of new accommodation for the southeast students in our regional capital city. Thank you to Deputy Shannon, thank you for your good wishes and thank you for your important question. I won't repeat the points that I made in relation to Deputy Conway-Wash, but they stand in relation to this question too, but specifically in relation to Waterford Institute of Technology, which I hope and expect will become a technological university shortly. I do take the point the deputy makes, but I would disagree strongly when the deputy says my department or the government has done nothing to assist, because with the publication of Housing for All, we have changed that policy, or indeed you could argue we have reversed that policy, because we have now made it very clear that we want institutes of technology and technological universities to be able to access the borrowing framework, to be able to access very cheap money using the state's infrastructure. As recently as last week, my officials, right up to the Secretary-General of my department, met with all of the representative bodies, including the IUA and Theia, along with the Department of Housing officials and my advisers, to make this very clear to our colleges that we want them to be coming forward with proposals. I will shortly meet with the Housing Finance Agency, with Minister Dara O'Brien as well, and I must say I am encouraged by the pipeline of projects that I see now coming forward from institutes of technology, technological universities and from the traditional universities. So while I accept some of the criticism, at the same time I do think it is accurate to say that there has been a very significant policy shift spearheaded by my department since its creation in relation to making sure those IOTs and technological universities can access the borrowing framework. We have a national student accommodation strategy, and I can again read out some of the progress that has been made, and it is a statement of fact that supply has increased. However, as I said to Deputy Conway Walsh, that is not the entirety of my position, because I believe that that strategy is in many ways out of date, in many ways overtaken by circumstance, and I think it was too reliant on just the private sector providing purposeful student accommodation. I would much rather, in terms of a sustainable situation, have college-owned, sector-owned accommodation. But there is a little rub, if we are going to allow these institutes of technology and universities to access the borrowing framework, I want them to address the affordability issue as well. I do not want to see what I have seen in some colleges and universities, where they build very fancy accommodation that is unaffordable for our students, and when I meet students' unions, they say, Sir Minister, it is no good telling me there is an extra 500 beds going there or 600 beds going there, because the price is extortionate. So our ask in return for accessing the borrowing framework will be, how do you make sure it is affordable to students? Sir Minister, the Minister of Affordability will certainly be a problem if you do not have supply. I have looked at the report and there is not a single piece of additional student accommodation in that report that was generated in Walford. The reason it was one of the premier IT's in the country was because it had its own ability to borrow until the TU was brought into pack and essentially had their feet held to the fire where there was lots of smoke but absolutely no fire. Nothing to be seen, Minister, but you could have reinstated the borrowing capability to WIT, but you did not. Walford had borrowed for more than 20 years to make itself, as I say, one of the premier institutes in the country and that capability was removed from it in terms of this national accommodation strategy and, as I said to you, the report is here in front of me. There is no additional capacity for student accommodation in Walford and, in fact, in terms of the take-up of new student numbers, we are static when the sector has grown itself by, I think, between 15% and 20% in the past five years. So, Minister, we need remediation and while I am on the subject of it, can I also point out to you that there were applications in from WIT. Thank you for almost £20 million for buildings that are over 40 years old where the water is coming through, the engineering building roof of the President, Minister, and no sign of any funding to come and sort that problem first. Thank you to the Deputy on the specific issue he raised there at the end of his contribution. I will engage with him on that matter and revert back to him and give that commitment on the floor of this House. But the point we are making is somewhat the same, Deputy, you say you have not done anything to assist. I am saying very clearly I have done exactly what I think you are asking me to do. I have rectified with government colleagues, with Minister O'Brien, a discrimination that has existed towards our institutes of technology and our technological universities. I do not want to just create technological universities for the regions that people can just commute to. I see a real benefit from a regional development point of view, that people not just from Waterford will study in the Technological University in Waterford, but the people in my own county or other counties will say, geez, that is a great university down there in Waterford, I want to go there, I want to move there, but I need to be able to access accommodation and it needs to be affordable. We have made a very significant policy shift in Housing for All and it is one that recognises that it is a very clear commitment to support our technological universities to develop purpose-built student accommodation. That is the difference. Up to now you are reliant on will a private developer build a purpose-built student accommodation? I am saying no, we want to work with the Technological University to build it itself or at least to own it itself. I am very happy to work with you in the context of the South-East on that matter. Minister, as I said to you, the key here is about the access to borrowing and you are saying that you want to do it through the TU. I am saying to you that we had the capability until the department removed it from us and certainly WIT was absolutely progressive, the first TU in the country to actually engage in providing its own student accommodation and that capability has been removed. We are waiting on your present accommodation strategy, which we have outlined in January 2019. As I said to you, it looks as if the strategy is withering on the vine. I cannot see any new capability in terms of delivering what you are talking about, affordability. This sounds years down the road to me when we are trying to increase our intake of numbers, trying to add to our capacity of the university. I think a lot of work needs to be done on this. I will certainly be happy to engage with you, Minister, but I think we need to see some clear action points delivered on this. The strategy is not withering on the vine. The targets in the strategy have all been exceeded. The 2019 target was exceeded. As of quarter two of this year, 10,700 bed spaces have been completed. I am making the point that we need to move beyond the strategy. I am making the point that this strategy is measuring how many private purpose-built student accommodation were built. There is a role for that. I want the new strategy, the new conversation to be about how do we work with the regions and indeed with all our universities and institutes of technology and TU's to build their own accommodation. The very significant shift, and WIT will be well aware of this through their rep bodies meeting last week with my Secretary-General, the very significant shift is that we now have a mechanism to make sure that they can get borrowing again using the state's infrastructure and accessing cheap money. However, I am not going to be a bystander in relation to this. If we are going to allow that, I want to have a conversation about what sort of accommodation and how it is affordable to students. There are examples in this country where the state's infrastructure has been used or European infrastructure has been used and some of the accommodation that has been produced has been prohibitive in terms of cost to students. That is not the policy direction. I would love to engage with you further on this and make progress for the South East. Thank you very much.