Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)

I thank everybody for attending. I apologise that I was not here for the opening statements. I was in the Chamber speaking on something else but I read the opening statements and I have a couple of questions. When the preparation was being done for what was going to happen, did the Department look to other countries and how they provided student accommodation? Did it take best practice from there? I know there is mixed-use accommodation throughout the EU. It would be interesting to see how the Department landed on the type it is going to do and whether there will be a variety in that.

Change of use for student accommodation was mentioned earlier. My constituency of Dublin South-Central seems to be central for student accommodation of the private variety, which costs a lot of money. When my daughter was about 12 years old and student accommodation was being built, she asked me if she would be living in there. I replied there was absolutely no way. She would be living at home because student accommodation was too expensive. She is living at home and not living in student accommodation in her university. That student accommodation is used for tourist accommodation during the summer months. While I understand that is allowed, is it not an awful shame that students cannot have their full experience of being a student and the freedom to go off and work in the summer months or do other things like explore different parts of their lives? They have to move out and go somewhere else. Will that change and will those accommodation providers, even though they are private, no longer be able to do that?

When it is State-sponsored student accommodation, does that affect the cost for the student and does the Department have an understanding of how much that student accommodation will be? Will student accommodation be aligned to the economic reality of the day, which I know changes over time? Will there also be a differentiated cost for students who may be on the SUSI grant or for other reasons? I know international students always pay more for different things, there are SUSI grants and there are also other people. Has that been taken into consideration?