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Student Accommodation

Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 8 March 2022

Tuesday, 8 March 2022

Questions (49)

Rose Conway-Walsh

Question:

49. Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science the detail of his plans to increase the supply of affordable on-campus accommodation; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12748/22]

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Oral answers (6 contributions)

We have an entrenched housing crisis and students and families have felt this extremely severely. I ask the Minister to outline his plans to increase the supply of affordable on-campus accommodation.

I am very conscious of the challenges faced by students with student accommodation. My Department and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage are working closely together on these issues. As everyone in this House will know, the underlying issue is one of supply. We need to increase the supply of all types of accommodation, including student accommodation. That is why we launched Housing for All, led by the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage which sets out a series of actions which will be delivered to address the housing crisis backed by a transformative budget of €20 billion.

In its ambition to deliver student accommodation, I acknowledge that the third level sector is facing the same issues which are affecting construction developments globally, including disrupted supply chains and other constraints. Very significant progress is being made in the Government's overall housing policy with both housing completions and commencements showing significant acceleration and the construction workforce back to pre-pandemic levels. Notwithstanding these trends, construction costs and other constraints are acting as a deterrent to institutions in proceeding with new developments. My Department and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage are considering whether options may be open to us to support increased supply with affordable rental levels.

With this in mind, I am working with my officials to consider immediate options and those initiatives which can be achieved in the more medium term. I have recently written to all universities, technological universities and institutes of technology asking them to identify any potential local solutions which could contribute to increased supply ahead of the next academic year.

This may involve the repurposing of existing buildings. This is an important, real and sincere offer. We saw in Limerick that there was an ability to identify a local solution and some facility that could be adapted there, with funding provided through the council, I believe, and that being ready for September. I would like to see if there are other examples of that. There is an open offer to all higher education institutions, HEIs, in that regard.

More broadly, as for the medium-term strategic change that needs to happen, my Department is, as I said, working with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage to examine how student accommodation can be incorporated into other developments aimed at boosting land supply, including the Land Development Agency's plans in Limerick, for example. In my view, student accommodation should form part of the overall residential mix.

I will update the Deputy further in a moment.

I welcome the Minister's response, in particular the part about working with the local authorities to identify for the higher education institutions possible locations for student accommodation and buildings that can be converted. As late as last week I discussed that with Atlantic Technological University. By the way, I congratulate Dr. Orla Flynn. I think she will do an excellent job there, and I know the Minister and I will work with her to ensure that Atlantic Technological University is successful. That is one tangible way in which this could work. The Minister has stated to me in previous responses that he has no plans to bring forward a new strategy for student accommodation because the current strategy covers 2017 to 2024. That strategy has been a failure.

I join the Deputy in congratulating Dr. Orla Flynn. I think she will be an excellent president. I wish her luck and look forward to Atlantic Technological University coming into being shortly.

The Deputy has hit the nail on the head. One of the institutions is already asking what it can do locally. For the first time here we are making a shift in policy and having an open-door policy for any local solution or idea that can come forward, particularly those with immediate solutions for September.

More broadly, though, I have admitted that we need to change policy when it comes to student accommodation. We do not need better speaking points to explain it; we need to change the policy. That is why I am meeting the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien. I am looking at the Land Development Agency as it develops across the country and whether student accommodation can be a part of that. The Minister and I are looking at a cost-rental model and whether there is room for that, what we need to do and whether there are grant-aid options to make it sustainable for the colleges to build. I will update the Cabinet committee on housing at the beginning of April on options in that regard.

The reliance on private sector purpose-built student accommodation has failed to deliver any affordable student accommodation. Looking at Mayo, for instance, the problem there is that we are concerned that the lack of accommodation will constrain the possibilities and the opportunities for Atlantic Technological University. There were only 24 properties to rent last week in Mayo, and we find that students are competing with families, which should not be the case. We should have purpose-built on-campus accommodation for students. This cannot be separated from the underfunding of higher education. Even the on-campus accommodation was turned into a source of revenue for colleges to replace the public funding removed under austerity. It is not the fault of the individual institutions; these decisions were made at a Government level. On-campus accommodation is charged for at near the market value because the various institutions need to cover costs. They therefore try to attract wealthier, more lucrative students to be able to bring in more revenue.

I probably do not have time to engage on the Deputy's last point, but let me offer some statistics. While I accept there needs to be new policy initiatives and policy levers, some of which I have outlined, it is important to say that since 2016 we have seen 12,149 purpose-built student bed units built. Work is under way on-site on an additional 3,128 units and planning permission has been obtained for a further 10,493 units. In addition, planning permission for a further 1,028 units has been applied for. I just wanted to put those figures on the record of the House. In addition, regarding Atlantic Technological University, institutes of technology and technological universities lacked clarity as to whether they could borrow to build student accommodation. That has now been clarified. They now can, and we have put into the mix immediate local solutions. The piece we are trying to rectify is affordability. What student unions say to me is that this is not just about the numbers being built, which I have cited, but has to be about trying to find that affordability. We have changed the law, as we discussed earlier, to deal with some of the difficulties students face in terms of upfront costs for student accommodation. I accept we need to do more and I will bring proposals to the Cabinet committee in April.

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