Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity)

I thank all our guests for coming here and for all their work. It is shameful that this is an annual part of the political and media calendar, in that from the perspectives of our guests and the people who work in the unions, this is just a thing that they know. Not only do our guests have to advocate on the issue, but they must go out and appeal for anyone to put forward beds. This issue has gone on for well over a decade.

It gets worse. It is shameful.

I have a question for whichever witness wants to answer it. Do the witnesses think student accommodation is an afterthought for the Government? It was striking that when it came out with the new proposals around the rent pressure zone legislation, the Government genuinely seemed not to have thought about what impact they would have because, if a person had a new tenancy, rents could be reset every time. A significant proportion of students are on nine- or ten-month tenancies and are therefore faced with increases. Is this the witnesses' general impression? Has there been more interaction with the Department of housing and the Minister in relation to that issue? We got mixed signals. We were initially given the very clear line that there would be no exceptions made for students, but now there is talk about some sort of exception being made for them or something new coming in the legislation. Do the witnesses have any more information about this? Is it something students are fearful of?