Sinn Féin spokesperson on Further and Higher Education, Mairéad Farrell TD, has said it is time the government moved beyond soundbites and reannouncements and started to deliver real solutions for addressing the student accommodation crisis.
Teachta Farrell said:
“Thousands of students across the state will today be considering CAO offers they have received today.
“This is a time of huge pride and excitement for students but for many, the search for accommodation will then bring a great deal of stress to them and their parents. The student accommodation crisis is now over a decade old and continues to get worse.
“My party has set out several solutions for addressing the crisis. These include the following:
University-owned accommodation
We would provide €300m in additional capital expenditure for student accommodation over a three-year period. This would be to advance shovel ready projects that the Universities have, but have yet to proceed due to financial viability issues.
In other words, we have universities with sites that have been approved for planning, but for which construction has yet to begin due to difficulties in ensuring that the delivery could be done on a sustainable basis.
This would allow us to commence the building of 3,000 student beds, assuming a three-year build time, at an annual cost of €100m over a three-year period.
Digs accommodation
We want to see regulation and protection brought to the digs accommodation sector. This part of the rental sector is completely unregulated despite the state providing a generous tax subsidy of up to €14,000 a year. In some instances, this tax break means that a homeowner renting a room can earn more than a standard landlord who is obligated to provide rents to their tenants.
At the same time, we hear constant horror stories from those who rent in this sector. From the young women who are required to undertake childing minding duties to keep the room, from the students who aren’t allowed to use the kitchen or bathroom facilities until after 10pm, to those who were evicted overnight for no reason at all, or those who had their deposits wrongly taken with no means of redress.
Sinn Féin’s Residential Tenancies Amendment bill (2024) would ensure the following:
- Students have a right to privacy, meaning a lock on their bedroom door (very important for women).
- The inclusion of the properties within the rent pressure zones (RPZs).
- The right for the homeowners and the student to access the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) for dispute resolution.
- The obligation to provide a 30-day notice period, unless the student has engaged in anti-social behaviour or damaged the home.
- The right to reasonable use of the property’s facilities.
Technological Universities
Despite the Taoiseach’s long-standing promise to allow the Technological Universities to undertake their own borrowing, like their more long-standing counterparts, this still has not happened.
A Sinn Féin government would allow the TUs to become fully fledged universities, which could borrow to deliver their own student accommodation. This is especially important as some of these institutions have large sites which could be used to provide a significant amount of student beds.
