Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 22 November 2018

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government

Residential Tenancies (Student Rents, Rights and Protections) Bill 2018: Discussion

9:30 am

Photo of Mick BarryMick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I have a question from Mr. Crosby. I read his statement and welcome that the Department of Education and Skills is open to extending some of the protections, improving quality standards and allowing students access to dispute resolution. However, allowing students access to dispute resolution is of little value to students who cannot get into accommodation in the first place, which is increasingly the case for many of the students who cannot afford the prices they are being quoted by the student-accommodation providers.

A new student-accommodation centre a little over a mile away from here opened in the autumn. It is charging €249 for a single room en suitewith shared kitchen. It is charging €349 for a studio. In Cork city a new student accommodation provider based a few hundred yards from University College Cork is charging €215 for its cheapest room and prices are higher for many of the other rooms.

These days it costs students €1,000 a month for many of these accommodation centres. It is unaffordable for students from working-class homes and for most students from ordinary middle-class homes. Increasingly people from very affluent and well to do backgrounds and some of the international students seem to be taking the places.

In his opening statement, Mr. Crosby said a balance had to be struck between prices and certainty for students on the one hand on the other hand being careful not to provide a disincentive for student accommodation providers. He also referred to legal requirements, which we can discuss further in the meeting. What are the legal requirements which provide an obstacle, presumably, to cutting these prices? There is no balance. Where is the balance between the rights of a multinational global corporation which is a major player in the international property scene charging €1,000 in rent and the rights of a student who needs a roof over their head when they come to Dublin or Cork city to study? Does he not accept there is a gross imbalance in that situation?

The rents need to be cut - not trimmed, but slashed - to make these places affordable. If that means a disincentive - in other words that the student-accommodation providers go elsewhere in order to maximise profits - does it not put us back to square one with the issue we need to face in the first place which is that we need public investment to assist the institutes of higher education to provide public affordable accommodation for students on campus?

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