Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 21 September 2023
73. Deputy Danny Healy-Rae asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science if he will outline what measures he is taking to assist students (details supplied) attending colleges in Cork and Limerick, especially first-year students, in finding on-campus accommodation. [40913/23]
View answerThe Minister will appreciate that we, in Kerry, have serious problems with students finding accommodation in places like Limerick and Cork. What can he do and what will he do in the future? More importantly this year, what can be done for all these students who do not have a place in Limerick and Cork today?
I thank the Deputy for raising the question. The first thing he would agree with me is that all roads out of Kerry should not lead to Cork or Limerick when it comes to getting a university education. The first thing I have done is to ensure that Kerry is now a university county and that Tralee is now a university town. This is an important point because the Deputy's constituents in County Kerry can now access a university education in the Kingdom, in Kerry. They could not do it before and could not have done it a couple of years ago; it can now happen. Kerry now has its own university, MTU Tralee campus. I want to build student accommodation and I want to help expand that Tralee campus. Munster Technological University has that campus in Tralee and provides a university option in Kerry for the first time. I welcome the great work of MTU in expanding the courses it is providing with even more courses now in Kerry, including investment in a new science, technology, engineering and maths, STEM, building, for which I recently turned the sod and which is now under construction.
The Deputy is right that we need to provide more student accommodation. Students have the right and may have the need to go outside their own county to access a university. Support of €1 million is being provided to our technological universities to undertake a needs assessment for the provision of student accommodation. My Department is also examining mechanisms to ensure the technological universities can borrow to build student accommodation. I believe this will help MTU in Cork and Kerry to build student accommodation.
I assure the Deputy, as I said in the House today, we are now investing taxpayers' money in building student accommodation. He mentioned Limerick. In November I got Government approval for €61 million to press "Go" on 1,100 student accommodation units. These are units that had planning permission but had not been built and needed taxpayers' money to make them viable. That includes accommodation in Limerick. My Department is working very closely with the University of Limerick and University College Cork to identify and assess potential projects in Cork and Limerick.
I would say to the Deputy's constituents that as they go back to college this year, while accepting the challenges they have, there are 938 more college-owned student accommodation beds this year than last year, including 255 of them in UCC, which he referenced. Over 2,000 privately funded beds are due to be completed and available this autumn.
Of course, I welcome what has happened in Tralee. However, I am talking about students who do not have accommodation in Cork and Limerick today. For whatever reason their courses are in those colleges at this time. They are travelling by bus. They cannot drive themselves because they cannot get a driving test in Kerry - it is an impossibility. The leaving cert results come out too late. The CAO offers are too late. The second round of CAO offers is much too late. The lottery system only satisfies some. Some students come from as far away as Cahersiveen. It is an awful journey from Cahersiveen to Limerick or Cork. College days are supposed to be the best days of their lives. They are telling me that they are sleeping on couches and on floors. They are sleeping in tents. Some are even joining together to rent hotel rooms. Their rents have been increased by 50% after the first two weeks. This is not good enough.
I ask the Deputy to provide me with the details of his constituent who is sleeping in a tent in college because I would be interested to pursue that with the university. There should be no reason we cannot provide accommodation. We have the rent-a-room scheme with 2,500 beds throughout the country available for students to rent. I am not suggesting it is perfect and am certainly not suggesting it is easy, but people can do much better. We can do much better for students than the scenario the Deputy outlined there.
I take the valid point he made about the late leaving cert results and the late CAO offers in recent years have added to the sense of pressure. The Deputy will acknowledge that this year the leaving cert results were back to August, thank God, and the CAO offers were earlier than in previous years.
I will take up the issue he made about the availability of driving tests. I am sure that is placing enormous pressure on people. I will talk to the Minister for Transport on that.
The Deputy spoke about many people travelling by bus. He will know that in the last budget we extended the 50% price reduction on the young adult Leap card to ensure that people in third level education could benefit. I would like to see that maintained in the budget and built upon. However, this is all about building more student accommodation and I am fully committed to doing that.
First year students find it the toughest. Second- and third-year students may have accommodation sorted before the holidays. These students are in a scramble and are finding it very tough. Some students from Kilcummin and Killarney are trying to rent a hotel room. Their parents are trying to help them. They are finding it very difficult and the rent prices are being increased by the hotels, which is not fair. We have to do something for these people. While some of them are trying to travel even on the green bus from Killarney to Limerick, they are travelling for an hour and three quarters up and an hour and three quarters down. Lecturers say that not all the students are attending because they are worn out and are not able to make lectures at times. We have to do something to help these students. It is a reality and is happening today.
Talking about Tralee, that is next year and down the line. These students have courses in Limerick and Cork at present and are finding it very difficult. I ask the Minister to do something to provide access to accommodation for these people who have applied for on-campus accommodation and cannot get it.
I certainly do and am doing things for those students. The Tralee campus is not something for tomorrow or the future; it is there today. More students from Kerry and from across the country have applied to go to university in Kerry this year than last year; that is the point I am making. I certainly do not need to advocate to the Deputy about Kerry. The point he makes is right. We agree on bringing university education closer to people to reduce their commute times. I want to see more done in Kerry to provide education opportunities in that county in order that people do not need to travel further.
There will always be people who need to travel and who wish to go to universities across the country and that is absolutely their right. The Deputy mentioned Cork. In Cork there 255 more student accommodation beds in UCC this September than last September. That is a real addition. While it may not be enough, it is 255 more. I promise that in the budget we will try to take more measures to accelerate the building of student accommodation and to reduce the cost of people travelling to college. The rent-a-room tax relief will help people in Kerry because it reduces the amount people will need to pay in rent over the course of the college year. We should also build on that.
