Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 14 February 2023
63. Deputy Martin Browne asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science to provide an update on student accommodation projects at advanced stages of planning that remain undeveloped due to a lack of agreement on Government support; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6950/23]
View answerI will go back to where we are with accommodation for college students. The Minister announced towards the end of last year that funding had been released for 667 of the 3,000 remaining undeveloped sites. I accept that he said earlier to Deputy Conway-Walsh that he met with representatives from these colleges. When can we see progress on this? Dublin City University, DCU, has planning permission for 990 additional beds. That has been the case since 2019. Can the Minister make a statement on that?
I can indeed. I thank Deputy Browne for the question. I will not go through the formal answer because he has heard some of it already. With regard to a straight question regarding DCU, this is something on which I hope to be in a position to make progress within a matter of weeks. I do not want to pre-empt conversations we are having with DCU or get ahead of myself but I acknowledge the really intensive and excellent way DCU has been engaging with my Department. There has been a real collaborative approach. There are many issues here, not just for DCU but in general in trying to ensure we comply with state aid rules and get a mechanism that works with the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform.
Crucially, however, we are in a housing emergency. We need to increase housing supply in general. Where universities have planning permissions, I want to get on and build. We want to help them. I am hoping to be in a position to update Cabinet on this very shortly.
I appreciate the Minister's response but the plan is a stopgap measure that still falls way short. Like I said, 667 out of 3,000 is a start but it is still does not come anywhere near what is actually needed in places like Waterford, Cork and Dublin. They have been left out of it. We are seeing the consequence of decades of underinvestment and now demand is outstripping supply.
At least it is now being recognised that the strategy needs to change and bring all affordable student accommodation back into it because college accommodation has always been the right approach. I do not believe anybody will say any different. These places have the land, they have the capacity, and it seems they have the willingness to deliver on the student accommodation. We need the Minister to move on this. He stated earlier that he is waiting for them to come back with plans and that he will move then. Perhaps the Minister needs to put a bit of fire under some of these places to start getting back onto it as quickly as possible.
I assure the Deputy that I have been willing but in fairness to them, I also wish to acknowledge they are up for it too. In fairness to our universities and our technological universities, a lot of them are chomping at the bit to make progress on this. They are all at different stages, which is just a statement of fact and not a value judgment. The six traditional universities have planning permissions and they want to get on with it and we want them to get on with it. We are trying to free them up to move on, including universities in the Deputy's county, which is now a university county. The Deputy now has university campuses in his county for the first time. We want people locally from Tipperary to be able to go to university in Tipperary and in due course we also want people to come to Tipperary who want to learn there because they like that course or because that university works for them. To do that we need to be able to develop student accommodation whether it is there or in Ennis, which is in Deputy Carey's constituency. We have the €1 million that we received in November, which we want to use as seed funding. We want the technological universities to get their plans in order, bring in their expertise, tell us what they can do in Tipperary, Ennis or Castlebar, and then get on with it.
If we assist with the students' rental situation the Minister will also assist with the wider problem, to some extent by taking the pressure off it. By its very nature, however, this kind of accommodation must be affordable. I am not talking about providing some affordable accommodation or restricting it to SUSI recipients. I am referring to all beds being offered at an affordable rates. Reference was made earlier to this. I am aware the Minister has said that it is not his Department but there is also confusion on the matter in the Revenue website. It states the number of conditions for the tax credit on accommodation where one pays the rent, including that "The property must be used by your child specifically to facilitate his or her attendance at an approved course." The same web pages state:
In certain cases, the Rent Tax Credit applies for tenancies which do not need to be registered with the RTB. This includes 'rent-a-room' or 'digs' type arrangements.
I know of families, and I have no doubt but that many Members in the House also know of such families, that are paying €1,000, €1,100 or €1,200. I was contacted by one family yesterday that has two children going to college. They are paying €1,200, but because of the anomaly in the Revenue criteria, they will not get anything. It perhaps comes back to the SUSI situation where students cannot work themselves to get a few euro. The parents are caught. Now they are being caught again for that €1,100 or €1,200 per month in rent. That needs to be looked at.
I refer to a reply to a previous parliamentary question on the same issue so I can give the Deputy accurate information. In response to a question to the Minister for Finance on the rent credit, the reply said:
The intention is that, in order for a person to be in a position to claim the credit in a year:
- the rent paid must be in respect of the person’s principal private residence,
- the person living in the rented property themselves, or their spouse/civil partner, must have paid the rent and sufficient tax to avail of the credit,
- the tenancy must be registered with the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) but only where this is already a legal requirement.
Tenants in the rent-a-room scheme and in student accommodation will also be able to claim the tax credit, subject to compliance with bullet points one and two above.
It does not say bullet point No. 3. My understanding of this has always been that a student in student accommodation could claim it and the student in the rent-a-room scheme could claim it, and that any student in another accommodation would have to be registered with the RTB. That is how I read the parliamentary question.
Can the parents claim it for the student?
Where the parent is paying the rent the parent can claim it but the property must be registered with the RTB.
The renters are being punished for the landlords not being registered with the RTB.
The rent-a-room scheme is covered but in general, and I presume the Deputy's party would agree with this, it is important that landlords register their properties with the RTB. This is a protection for tenants and is often sought by Members on all sides of the House.
