Professor Maggie Cusack:

Good morning everyone, I am Professor Maggie Cusack, president of MTU. On behalf of all our students of MTU, I welcome this opportunity to discuss student accommodation with the joint committee.

MTU was established in 2021. We have six campuses across Cork and Kerry with 2,000 staff members and 18,000 students. Since I became president in 2021, I have seen students really struggle with the housing crisis and lack of affordable and suitable accommodation. This has become the number one concern for students and a critical issue for equity of access, student well-being and the future of Ireland’s knowledge economy. We agree with the statement in the programme for Government, which reads, “The knowledge economy remains key to our international competitiveness.” The formation of five technological universities in four years from 2019 to 2022 is evidence of the national commitment to our knowledge economy. The TUs are providing regional access to third level education, supporting the social and economic vitality of our regions through our skills provision, research, innovation and entrepreneurship and delivering on the national access plan.

MTU’s first economic and social impact study indicates a minimum annual economic impact of €979 million - almost €1 billion. We are proud to offer a range of access routes to support learners. Some of our students are the first in their families to attend university. We see many from communities who are traditionally under-represented in third level education. Our students face a myriad of challenges, with Covid-19 having had generational impact and the cost-of-living crisis and the housing crisis being major factors in their struggles to access affordable accommodation. Our students deserve better.

Since there have been no opportunities for Cork Institute of Technology, Institute of Technology, Tralee or MTU to build student accommodation, we at MTU we do not have any of our own accommodation. As a consequence, many of our students travel to campus each day. They are missing out on a quality student experience and the full benefits of campus life and peer learning. There are societal and economic knock-on effects of commuting, too, such as congestion in our communities and the undermining of our climate action targets. At the moment, there is only one TU in Ireland with its own student beds. SETU has 432 student beds. The TUs collectively have 106,000 students, so we have beds for 0.4% of the TU student population.

In the pre-budget submission from the TUA, we welcome the programme for Government commitment to develop a multi-annual plan to urgently deliver new student accommodation, including through State-financed, purpose-built student accommodation on public or private lands and to enable technological universities to borrow funds to provide for on-campus student accommodation. Policy must now follow through on its commitments for our students, society and economy and address external factors, including the national housing crisis and our climate targets. The programme for Government acknowledges that the market alone cannot deliver student accommodation without direct State intervention to ensure project viability. While MTU has the capacity to develop on-campus housing, even excluding land costs, financial support will still be required to deliver purpose-built student accommodation. A co-ordinated, sector-wide approach is essential. Governing bodies cannot be left to shoulder unsupported investment decisions that would expose them to substantial construction and operational risks over long timeframes. Their role is to provide sound financial oversight and they will not accept the level of market risk currently inherent in these projects without State backing. For the Government, the return on investment is substantial, even with a limited support model that would see the State support limited to projected revenue returns. These may be conservatively estimated at 30% to 35%.

At MTU, we have completed our demand analysis and identified land for on-campus student accommodation in Kerry and Cork. We have gone as far as we can since we require derogated authority from the HEA to proceed to planning permission. It is essential that we build upon the work that individual TUs and the HEA, with the Department of further higher education through preliminary business cases, have already done and not start the clock again with an entirely new initiative. These are projects that can be fast-tracked and delivered within the current Government’s term of office. Honouring the programme for Government commitment to enable the technological universities to borrow funds to provide for on-campus student accommodation is essential for the TUs to provide on-campus student accommodation, to improve the student experience, contribute positively to our climate and housing crisis, and diversify income to TUs for investment in student supports.