Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 28 April 2026
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage
Delivery of Student-Specific Accommodation: Discussion
2:00 am
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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We have swaps today. Deputy Jen Cummins is substituting for Deputy Rory Hearne. Deputy Donna McGettigan is substituting for Deputy Eoin Ó Broin.
I advise members of the constitutional requirement that members must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex in order to participate in public meetings.
Student rental accommodation in Ireland is under severe pressure, with high rents and limited supply making it increasingly difficult for students to secure suitable housing. These challenges are a key part of the wider housing crisis and have direct impacts on access to education, student well-being and regional participation in higher education. Today, I am pleased to have the opportunity to consider this and other related matters with representatives of the Residential Tenancies Board and the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science. From the Department, I welcome Mr. Paul Lemass, assistant secretary; Ms Ann Gorman, head of student accommodation; and Ms Martina Hayes, assistant principal. From the Residential Tenancies Board, I welcome Ms Rosemary Steen, director, who is online; Ms Louise Loughlin, deputy director; Ms Sinéad Murphy, head of communications; and Mr. Brian Gallwey, senior research and policy manager.
I will explain some limitations to parliamentary privilege and the practice of the Houses as regards references witnesses may make to another person in their evidence. The evidence of witnesses physically present, or who give evidence from within the parliamentary precincts, is protected pursuant to both the Constitution and statute by absolute privilege. Witnesses are again reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in any such way as to make him, her or it identifiable, or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative they comply with any such direction.
The opening statements have been circulated to members. Is it agreed that we will accept the opening statements and publish them on our website? Agreed.
I now invite the Department and the Residential Tenancies Board to give their opening statements. We might keep them to three minutes. If we go over the three minutes, we will stop because we want to give members an opportunity for more questions. I will ask my colleague, Deputy McGrath, to step in while I go to the Chamber. We have three minutes and we will start with Ms Loughlin.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Perfect. Thank you. I call Ms Steen.
Ms Rosemary Steen:
The team from the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, has been introduced by the Chair.
The Residential Tenancies Board is an independent public body that regulates Ireland’s rental sector. We regulate all private, approved housing body, cost-rental and student-specific accommodation and tenancies in Ireland. We work to deliver a fair rental system for everyone in Ireland. In our role, we inform tenants and landlords about their rights and responsibilities, ensure landlords register tenancies and follow rental law and help to resolve tenancy disputes. We provide trusted data and insights to inform rental sector policy. The RTB does not have a role in the development or delivery of studentspecific accommodation. Our remit in this area relates to regulation, compliance and data.
Students live in a variety of rental arrangements, including purposebuilt, studentspecific accommodation, standard private residential tenancies and digs or rentaroom arrangements. While studentspecific accommodation and private residential tenancies fall within the RTB’s remit, as the committee knows, digs arrangements do not. Where a student lives with the property owner in their principal residence, the arrangement is a licence. It is not registered with the RTB and is not currently covered by the Residential Tenancies Act.
All studentspecific accommodation must be registered annually with the RTB. To be classified as studentspecific accommodation, a property must be used exclusively for student accommodation during the academic term. Renting a private residential property to a student does not make the tenancy student-specific accommodation, SSA.
At the end of quarter 4 of 2025, 39,720 studentspecific accommodation tenancies and licences were registered with the RTB, an increase of 8.7% from the figure at the end of 2024. Registrations are concentrated in urban centres close to main higher education institutions, which we have listed. Importantly, the RTB figures count tenancies rather than bed spaces.
Many students also live in standard private residential tenancies, which must be registered annually. We do not currently collect data on whether tenants in private tenancies are students at the point of registration. However, our survey work suggests that 5% of tenants were in higher education in 2022-23, and we will be repeating this work again in 2026.
Tenants in studentspecific accommodation have most of the same rights and protections as tenants in the private rental sector. However, there are differences, including the permitted length of tenancy or licence arrangements and around rules governing the ending of tenancies. Since 1 March 2026, new national rent control rules apply to all private tenancies and student-specific accommodation. Under these rules, there are specific provisions for SSA.
For most SSA tenancies, rent may be increased once per year by 2% or the rate of inflation, whichever is lower. Inflation is measured by the consumer price index, CPI, and rent may be reset to market levels once every three years. Rent cannot be reset to market levels before 1 March 2029, or outside the threeyear cycle. There is an important exemption for new SSA developments where construction commenced on or after 10 June 2025. For these properties, the 2% cap does not apply and rent may be increased annually in line with CPI, even where this exceeds 2%.
Informing tenants and landlords of their rights and responsibilities and driving compliance with rental law, are core aspects of the RTB’s work. We have put a lot of work into this and my colleagues will be able to talk more about it during the meeting, but we ran a student renting information campaign at the start of each academic year. In 2025, the campaign achieved 44,000 hits to an information page created for landlords and students. This was an increase of 83% on 2024.
The RTB continues to actively investigate and sanction breaches of rental law by studentspecific accommodation providers. To date, we have published three sanctions involving 54 SSA tenancies, with a combined value of €23,500. We currently have nine further investigations under way into SSA providers, primarily relating to alleged breaches of rules on advance rent and deposits. Four of these cases are awaiting Circuit Court confirmation. Subject to court outcomes, we expect to publish further significant sanctions later in 2026 in these cases, which involve more than 220 tenancies.
Following legislative changes from 1 March 2026 and the publication of the national studentspecific accommodation strategy, the RTB is progressing several initiatives for the 2026-27 academic year. These include enhancements to SSA registration to capture additional rentsetting information; planning for a new digital SSA registration solution; a webinar for SSA providers; and establishing datasharing arrangements with the Higher Education Authority, HEA, to support identification of unregistered SSA tenancies. We will also be engaging with both Departments on the objectives set out in the strategy. These include enhancing data availability and research on the impact of new SSA developments on local rental markets. The enhancements to SSA registration processes currently under way are essential to delivery on these objectives.
The RTB is committed to working with both Departments to deliver research, data and insights to support policymaking and delivery in this area. We remain committed to upholding rental law, driving compliance and supporting a fair rental sector. I thank the committee again for the opportunity to address members and accommodating me today. We look forward to members’ questions.
Mr. Paul Lemass:
I thank the Chair and members for the opportunity to update the committee on the new National Student Accommodation Strategy 2026-2035.
The strategy sets out a pathway to make higher education more accessible by addressing two critical challenges, namely, accommodation supply and viability and accommodation affordability. It builds on the delivery of over 16,000 new purpose-built student accommodation, PBSA, beds since the first strategy was published in 2017, bringing the total stock to over 49,000 beds with almost 1,000 additional beds delivered or in development as part of the Government's short-term activation programme.
Current predictions indicate an emerging demand for approximately 42,000 additional student beds over the next decade. Over 14,000 beds currently have planning permission but have not proceeded to site. To address supply and viability, the strategy sets out a commitment to long-term State-backed activation measures, working in partnership with the private sector, including support for the development of PBSA on public campuses, as well as on private sites near to campus, subject to state aid clearance; enabling technological universities to support development of PBSA through use of nomination agreements; expansion of the technological sector student accommodation programme to include traditional universities; and enhancing supply of student beds through promotion of rent-a-room accommodation.
Viability is being enhanced through a reduction in VAT on the sale of apartments and through the Government’s recent revision of the rent framework, which is designed to strike a balance between protecting students from excessive rent increases and ensuring a predictable income stream that can support development financing. The Department has published a standardised design guideline for State-supported student accommodation, which allows adaptable layouts, unit mixes and shared amenities, enabling more cost-effective delivery. These measures offer a practical pathway to rapidly deliver the beds required nationwide. A programme board has been set up to advance the student accommodation programme, including membership from the Department, the Higher Education Authority and the National Development Finance Agency, as well as representatives of the sector. Rent-a-room remains an important source of student accommodation. The scheme allows homeowners to earn up to €14,000 per year from renting a room without tax liability.
The Department is acutely aware that affordability of accommodation remains a major pressure for students and their families. The strategy focuses on providing targeted financial supports directly to students. The main form of direct student support is via the student grant scheme. Budget 2026 increased all non-adjacent maintenance grants by between €200 and €430, effective from September 2026 with pro rata increases for students in the current academic year. Commuting is a viable option for some students, and the strategy aligns with sustainable transport policy objectives.
To ensure co-ordination, HEIs will be asked to develop their own specific student accommodation strategies. Department officials met with a wide variety of stakeholders during the consultation process, and I acknowledge all those who contributed to the strategy’s development. This strategy is focused on activation, affordability and delivery to enable individual success and broader social, economic and regional benefits. I welcome the committee’s questions and look forward to continued engagement on this matter.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Mr. Lemass for that. I now turn to members, and I know Deputy Cooney is under particular time pressure. I will hand over to Deputy Cooney.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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I thank the witnesses for coming in here this evening and for their opening statements.
I have a question for the Department. There are almost 15,000 student bed spaces granted planning permission that have not been delivered. In recent weeks, we have been told the construction is due to start on 1,400 bed spaces on Groody Road in Limerick.
Why has this development moved forward while others are stuck and not moving? What has changed?
Mr. Paul Lemass:
I thank Deputy Cooney for the question.
We are very happy with the announcement from Limerick, and we take an active interest in what is happening on-site. The latest data we have on commencement notices, which is when building commences on-site, indicate there are 2,735 beds under construction at present, excluding the development in Limerick. The 1,400 beds in Limerick have been announced but as of our last report, they had not got a commencement notice in.
We argue there are 2,735 excluding the Groody Road one. If you add that on, you are north of 4,000, so there is activity in the market.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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With over 4,000, what is holding up the rest of them and why are they not moving forward?
Mr. Paul Lemass:
We have seen in recent months some fundamental changes to the operating context. We expect the changes in VAT on the construction of apartments, which includes student accommodation, as well as the changes to rental legislation, will mobilise some of these.
In addition, the Department is running a higher education student accommodation programme, and we will look to use that programme to, ideally, activate some of the existing planning permissions but also other sites we might not be aware of, including sites on university land, to get more supply into the market.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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That would be welcome, and hopefully it will release some of the private houses back into the market for renting.
Does the Department think the State should contract with developers to purchase a student accommodation complex once built, and then allow a college to operate same? We effectively do this with local authorities and housing bodies for social housing. Could something similar be looked at as regards student accommodation?
Mr. Paul Lemass:
I will make a brief comment on the Deputy's previous remark about private rental. The student accommodation strategy's projections are predicated on no increased demand for private rental. In other words, we are very conscious of the pressure on private rental. The numbers I quoted earlier are based on using rent-a-room accommodation, purpose-built student accommodation, PBSA, on campus and PBSA off campus but not private rental. We are not projecting an increase in the use of private rental. There is a significant use of private rental already.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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Which is welcome.
Mr. Paul Lemass:
As regards the contract in the college, we are currently working with the National Development Finance Agency, the Higher Education Authority and a number of universities with a view to looking at on-campus or off-campus developments. As things stand, we have had a market engagement with developers in the sector to establish interest. We would be very much focused on a situation where the developer would lead out and that would be facilitated by the university. On new supply of PBSA, the focus is very heavily on developer-funded and delivered.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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That is fantastic. It is good to hear that as well.
Can the State underwrite or guarantee the level of long-term future occupancy - let us say 20 or 30 years or whatever the case may be - between the colleges and the developers in order to provide banks and investors with the security that would allow them to be funded and constructed? Are there reasons why this cannot be achieved?
Mr. Paul Lemass:
-----and the ability of technological universities to enter into a borrowing or a commitment. As things stand, what are known as traditional universities do have capacity to borrow. Trinity, UCD, UCC, UCG, and UL - colleges like those - would all have the capacity to borrow, whereas technological universities do not currently have a borrowing framework. In order to get going with student accommodation, we have introduced a concept that is well-established internationally called the nominations agreement. This is essentially what the Deputy has described here, where the university would commit to taking a fixed number of beds for a fixed number of years as part of the development of student accommodation. It is quite right to say that once developers know they have effectively pre-sold a number of the beds, they can go to a bank and get finance. That certainly helps them with raising finance and it might even help with the interest rates.
On the duration of a nominations agreement, it remains to be seen, when we go to the market, what actual duration people would want. However, it does not tend to be for 20 or 30 years. It would more likely be five or ten years that would be the kind of timescale. Generally speaking, what developers want to do is get the thing full and demonstrate that it is operational. That is where the nominations agreement helps. It is also a commitment on the part of the university. Working through all of that is what the programme is doing at the moment.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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Is this something that can be achieved going forward?
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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That is good. I thank Mr. Lemass.
Joe Flaherty (Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Department for its overview. It was very informative.
In regard to the pipeline, we have 4,100. Not all are going to fall this year; most of them will, hopefully, fall next year. Set against the Department's expectations and plans, is that us on track or what ballpark do we need to be delivering per year to reach the targets that were set out?
Mr. Paul Lemass:
The target is to deliver 42,000 beds across three forms of tenure: PBSA on campus, PBSA off campus and rent-a-room digs. If you were to do a simple exercise of spreading that across the ten years, you would be looking at 4,200 beds per year across those three. We have 4,100 in development. The Senator is quite right that they will not all come in 2026 or maybe even 2027.
Joe Flaherty (Fianna Fail)
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It is a decent start.
Mr. Paul Lemass:
It is a decent pipeline and this is before we ever start mobilising more to our own programme. To be fair, the rent reform really only took place in March. We are now in April. I would expect that reform, combined with the VAT reform from the budget, would stimulate a bit more. We think it is a reasonable pipeline to be getting on with.
Joe Flaherty (Fianna Fail)
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Good. In relation to rent-a-room - we have the Teach Beag initiative now which is slightly different - that is modelled on Teach Beag, I see greater potential for that in rural Ireland, in the likes of Sligo and Athlone, where the houses have much bigger gardens, as opposed to Dublin. We have a lot of elderly people in those houses who did not want to downsize but have a big house and garden. Are there any plans within the Department to link in with universities and target that market? They did not want to go for the rent-a-room because they felt it was intrusive and there were people in their houses, but I see huge scope and potential there. You can get a two-bed modular for €90,000 plus €10,000 to deliver it. It is €100,000 for a very good return, albeit only for the academic year. Has the Department given that any thought?
Mr. Paul Lemass:
The proposals on the Shomera-type arrangement are very new. I know a memo has gone to Government but the legislation has not been adopted. My understanding is that those proposals would include eligibility for rent-a-room tax relief, which would be important. We believe the rent-a-room tax relief is a very effective instrument and it is driving up the adoption of rent-a-room. My understanding is that the desire of the Department of housing is that it would also be under a license agreement. That is something that would have to make its way through the Oireachtas as well.
Joe Flaherty (Fianna Fail)
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I was interested to hear Mr. Lemass's comments on the nominations agreement in regard to finance. I have a slightly different view or feedback on it, particularly from financiers. They see five years as way too short to extend the level of credit. Most of these projects could be looking at 90% to 95% finance and certainly, if it is an investment fund, it is not going to go at anything that has a five-year guarantee. Is there any way around that? Can we not broaden the remit to allow colleges to borrow, similar to the universities? What have we to do to fix that piece?
Mr. Paul Lemass:
The strategy sets out an ambition to work through nominations agreements and the provision of sites. We hope that the combination of those two would be enough to attract a developer but we also recognise that developers will have site preferences. They would like city-centre sites and the prominent city sites. That is something we are learning with the developers as we discuss and develop the proposals. We will continue to develop the proposals and respond accordingly to what responds to viability measures.
As regards the length of a nominations agreement, internationally what people find is that the most attractive destinations do not require a whole lot of nominations agreement at all and the least attractive require quite a lot of nominations agreement. It is something we will have to address at that point. We are not at the point where we have to make that call.
Joe Flaherty (Fianna Fail)
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It would be the least attractive. I would be looking again at the likes of Sligo and Athlone, which I would be more familiar with, where we would need student accommodation. The difficulty for the colleges is that there is no win apart from them getting a guaranteed number of beds, as opposed to Dublin and the larger population bases, where there have been investments in student accommodation and it is a revenue income stream for them as well. The nomination scheme will not give them that security or opportunity either to finance future developments, will it?
Mr. Paul Lemass:
No. The objective is to provide accommodation for students. Given the viability challenges in the market, it is a significant challenge to just get things built. If you expect to be able to build and rent them and generate a profit, the market will not sustain that. You would not be able. With the rents you would charge, the market would not sustain it.
Joe Flaherty (Fianna Fail)
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I have a final question and I will give Mr. Lemass a rest then. In relation to developers who have secured planning for student accommodation and then come back to change that to something more commercially viable, such as apartments, will the Department take a view that it will object to that? What is the Department's position on that?
Mr. Paul Lemass:
The Department would not have a position on that. The developer is free to look at a site and apply for whatever form of planning permission they would want to have. What I would say is that as part of the development of student accommodation, the Department, working through the National Development Finance Agency, NDFA, will be going out with an expression of interest and, subsequently, a tendering process, which will seek to identify locations on or near campuses that could be used for student accommodation.
If people are in those situations and have an opportunity, we hope they would consider it.
Joe Flaherty (Fianna Fail)
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I have just one other question. Has the Department been given much State land for student accommodation?
Mr. Paul Lemass:
It is not really a question of our being given State land; it is more a question of universities that have State land and would like to have development on it. The goal there is that this is land that would not otherwise be available for housing, and there are situations where universities have capacity to build student accommodation on campus. That is the one where the university would be considering it. It is important to note that the development would be an agreement between a university and a developer. The Department is facilitating this process but, ultimately, that would be the agreement.
Donna McGettigan (Clare, Sinn Fein)
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In terms of the RTB, when setting rent levels, is there a distinction between specific accommodation and purpose-built student accommodation? Under the new strategy, if a developer builds student accommodation on university-owned land, what rent levels will they be subject to?
Donna McGettigan (Clare, Sinn Fein)
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When setting rent levels, is there a distinction between SSA and purpose-built student accommodation? If a developer builds student accommodation on university-owned land, what rent levels will that be subject to?
Ms Sinéad Murphy:
I think this is about the market rent level. Is that what the question is about? Under the rental law changes from 1 March 2026, landlords are now required to provide a rent-setting statement to the tenant and the RTB at the start of the tenancy, and in that they have to give three examples from the RTB rent register that demonstrates that the rent they are setting is at market level and-----
Donna McGettigan (Clare, Sinn Fein)
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What if the landlord owns three properties?
Ms Sinéad Murphy:
We provide the rent register and people can search, based on the eircode of the tenancy they are setting rent for, for comparable examples. They can give examples of any tenancy that is a similar property in a similar area to justify that, in their opinion, that represents market rent for the tenancy. Obviously, when it comes to SSA tenancies, we would expect that they are comparing like with like in terms of properties, so they should be comparing SSA tenancies. We have provided a separate SSA rent register on our website, which is a list of all SSA tenancies registered with the RTB with rent levels that they can use to check that. We are working on some improvements to our registration process for this year to collect additional data on rent setting from SSA providers. Once the 2026-27 academic year has started and we have collected that registration data, we will publish an enhanced SSA rent register at that point. As the Deputy quite rightly says, a lot of SSA providers will have comparable examples from within their own portfolio of registration numbers.
Donna McGettigan (Clare, Sinn Fein)
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The report details significant levels of non-compliance by accommodation providers. Without going into the specific details, could the witnesses give details of the nature of this non-compliance? It is quite concerning to read that 220 tenancies will be found to be non-compliant in 2026.
Ms Louise Loughlin:
I can take that. The RTB has a range of functions available to it under its regulatory powers where there is what is set out in law as improper conduct by landlords. Most of that improper conduct applies to all types of landlords in the private rented sector and in student-specific accommodation. Without going into the details of the ones that are referenced in our opening statement, the examples we tend to see are around landlords seeking to take more than one month's rent as deposit and around rent setting. That is where we focus our attention. We do find with a lot of our compliance activity that although we have the published sanctions available on our website, a lot of the time when our team contacts landlords, they tend to come into compliance at that point. Our focus would always be to bring landlords into compliance rather than necessarily to use all the powers. That is why it would be seen to take some time for it to come through. That would tend to be the space where we would see that activity.
Donna McGettigan (Clare, Sinn Fein)
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According to a report in the Irish Independent, new student units built by private developers on State land will have no dedicated rent controls for some 32,000 beds. Is that the case, do the witnesses believe?
Donna McGettigan (Clare, Sinn Fein)
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The new strategy also cites building PBSA on university-owned land as a core principle, but will developers be able to sell these units on to the private market when the lease agreement ends? If not, if it is handed back, in what state will it be handed back? Will the taxpayer end up having to fund those to bring them back up to a standard?
Mr. Paul Lemass:
I thank the Deputy for the question. The broad parameters of the engagement with developers are set out in the strategy but the detail is yet to be worked out. However, the broad principle would be that a university would make a site available under licence or under lease, whatever the best legal approach would be. After a long period - 60 years is posited in the strategy, but it could be 50 or 70, depending on what the deal is - it is envisaged that the property would transfer back to the university. In what condition? That is yet to be worked out as part of a proposition to go to the market with, but it is envisaged that it would transition back to the university.
Donna McGettigan (Clare, Sinn Fein)
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That means there is no certainty, so we have waited however long for this strategy to come out and there is no certainty around how this is even going to work. It is all just envisaging and hoping. That is not a good strategy to me.
Mr. Paul Lemass:
The strategy is engaging with the market to establish a level of interest in taking sites on campus. As part of that, we will have to work through all the issues around the period for which they would take it, the rents, the nominations agreements and all that. That is a work in progress. We are meeting with the NDFA and the HEA fortnightly to work through all these matters but the work is not completed yet.
Donna McGettigan (Clare, Sinn Fein)
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We still do not know whether there will be a cost to the taxpayers if those properties are in a bad state when they come back to us. In 2024 Simon Harris announced:
For the first time in the history of this State we want to provide taxpayers' funds to [TUs] to help them build student accommodation.
I take it that is gone by the wayside.
Mr. Paul Lemass:
The national development plan sectoral strategy for the further and higher education sector includes a provision for student accommodation, and there are funds ring-fenced for student accommodation within that. The precise use, whether it is for site servicing, site surveys or preparation of sites, is still being worked through, but there is funding set aside in the national development plan for student accommodation in addition to the €100 million or so that has already been spent on the short-term activation.
Donna McGettigan (Clare, Sinn Fein)
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Where do we stand with the TUs? Will they be able to build their own or is it through these nominations agreements?
Donna McGettigan (Clare, Sinn Fein)
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We know under the nominations process that if any of those beds are vacant, we have to pay for them. How will that work?
Mr. Paul Lemass:
Again, these are details we are working through at the moment. We have been meeting with NewERA and the Department of public expenditure and reform and we hope to meet soon with the Department of Finance to work out the parameters of this. We will also work with universities. It is now the implementation of that strategy and we are in the thick of it at the moment, so I cannot give the Deputy a definitive answer right now because we are developing that programme as we speak.
Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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I thank all the witnesses for their presentations. I am sorry I am in and out. That is just this job. It is in and out. I will be leaving again but I will come back.
I am struck by the RTB and Ms Steen saying that a number of sanctions have come in. There were three already published, then there are the 54 SSA tenancies, with a combined value of €23,500, and then in 2026 there will be further cases and 220 tenancies will be affected. I would love to know a little more about that. I am a little concerned for students who will go into digs accommodation because of maybe the lack of protections they may have with the type of agreement they have with the person whose home they are living in. Whereas I understand that that might suit some students who are in a specific circumstance, I do not think that long-term, for somebody's entire time in college, it is necessarily the best type of accommodation.
From the perspective of the RTB, how can we protect students in that situation? That is the first question. Will the witnesses go into a little more detail about the types of sanctions the RTB was talking about? The witnesses may not be able to but I am just interested to know what that looks like, particularly for students. When we speak to student bodies they tell us that they feel totally vulnerable, but when we are speaking with the Department or the Minister they say that protections are in place. This is evidence, however, that there are difficulties. I just want to figure out with the witnesses how we can protect students in many different types of accommodation but particularly in digs.
Ms Rosemary Steen:
The RTB is concerned. We do a lot of work around compliance and in ensuring direct engagement with landlords so that they understand their obligations around rental law in this sector in particular. Last September, we wrote to all the student-specific accommodation, SSA, providers to remind them of their obligations under rental law and we circulated a compliance and information leaflet. The issues that we see include confusion around potential service charges, for example, and whether it is transparent to a student how service charges are being applied and what types of services are available. We want that to be done as transparently as possible so the student really understands the basis on which the service is being built. The other thing have done is invite all the SSA providers to an information webinar that will cover information on changes to the registration and rent-setting process for 2026-2027, so that everybody is clear on the examples that my colleague discussed earlier on how they are supposed to use the rent register. Equally, we will be talking to the student groups as part of some of the engagement we are doing in the next couple of weeks on changes to rental law. My objective with the team is to make sure that everybody is clear on their rights as much as possible.
With regard to the situation in relation to deposits, we are very clear that where it is student accommodation and the deposit has been paid it must be returned fairly. One of the things that has been raised, which the Deputy will be aware of, is a lot of fraud. We have been very clear that where there is any suspicion of fraud, dishonesty or deception it is a matter for An Garda Síochána. As part of that information campaign, we are really asking students to be very careful when engaging online with offers. We get involved where very vulnerable students get in contact with us - the Deputy is probably aware of some of these cases that are in the public domain - and we do investigate those. I am afraid I cannot discuss the instances that are before the courts, for reasons members will understand, but we include warnings about rental scams in our annual registration campaign. My colleague Ms Loughlin may also want to comment on that compliance activity.
Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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Can I ask if the RTB thinks it should?
Ms Louise Loughlin:
That is a matter for policymakers. We implement the policies. It would be a significant undertaking for the RTB to regulate in that sector. On the Deputy's specific ask about the published investigations, as the director said, I cannot go into the ones that are pending. It would be inappropriate for us to do so. Since November 2022, we have initiated 12 investigations into student-specific accommodation providers and we published sanctions in three of these. They involved 54 tenancies and resulted in sanctions of €23,500 in total. Of the breaches investigated in these 12 cases two involved rent pressure zone breaches. Under the new legislation, that would now become setting rent higher than permitted. One involved requiring a student to sign a lease longer than 41 weeks, which is a specific improper conduct relating to student-specific accommodation. Ten cases involved seeking more than one month's rent in advance and one month's deposit. That information is there and members can read more about them as we publish the sanctions on our website. As soon as they come through from the courts and the appeal periods have passed, we publish them on our website and we speak to them when we have our quarterly update. We obviously include that information there as well. We anticipate more coming through later in the year.
Mr. Paul Lemass:
I recognise the Deputy's concern about the rent-a-room piece. The strategy explicitly calls out that each university should adopt a student accommodation strategy and should take ownership of the promotion and oversight of rent-a-room in their area. We very much strongly encourage any prospective students to reach out to the student accommodation function in their university in the first instance, both around the availability and the oversight of it. There is a good local awareness of what the reliable accommodation is and the reliable platforms to work through.
The Department has also given licence agreements and guidelines to all universities. I went through them only as recently as lunchtime. They do call out the kinds of things that one absolutely should have in a licence agreement. It is not unreasonable to ask both the tenant and a licensor to sign an agreement like that. Those are things-----
Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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The problem is that these are guidelines and they are not compulsory. That is the challenge if somebody in good faith signs up to them. We are not talking about people who are genuine and are not going to cause difficulties, on both sides, but the problem is that it is voluntary and people do not have to sign up to it. We are talking about a small cohort of people here. Representatives from AMLÉ will be in later and they will talk about the horrors that they see from their members. It is those people we need to be protecting, so I feel that they need to be stronger than guidelines. If somebody can get up to €14,000 per year for renting out a room and they are renting to a student, it should be compulsory to sign up to these, and they would not be called guidelines then.
Mr. Paul Lemass:
For me it would be a warning sign if somebody was not ready to sign up to a licence agreement, especially if I was going into a property and the landlord declined to give me a licence agreement. The licence agreement calls out things such as the Deputy mentioned like the utilities, what is included, what is excluded, whether it is a five-day week or a seven-day week and all of these issues, which do come up. The licence agreement would get them identified upfront and signed off, a copy of which the licensor and the student should have. We would also see a role for the university here. We would see the university having a kind of oversight and a soft quality assurance role, if you will. The more reputable platforms, including StudentPad, which most of the universities administer, is a way of achieving that kind of thing. It is also about building awareness. We also have a link to Threshold's cyber scam advice on the guidance. We hope that the combination of those things, if properly implemented, would reduce the incidence of abuse.
Ms Sinéad Murphy:
In relation to the digs versus tenancy protections, it is something that we have encountered in our preparations around our annual student renting campaign and our engagement with student groups last year. One thing that is critical is raising awareness among students of the type of rental arrangement that they are living in. We found from our engagement that there is a lack of understanding among students when they opt for rent-a-room, that there are different protections, and that when they are in SSA, it is different to being in private rental. That was a considerable focus and it was the first point we communicated in our student campaign last year, that students must first of all establish what their rights are related to the accommodation option they have chosen. It is fundamental that students understand those differences.
Jen Cummins (Dublin South Central, Social Democrats)
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I thank the witnesses.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank both groups for being here today. Because there are myriad student accommodation types, it is difficult to get a real picture of the data. There was reference in the Department's opening statement to 49,000 beds currently, but that is student-specific accommodation and does not include rent-a-room or private tenancies. Do we have any indication of the overall number of student beds? Would the Department have an estimate of how many student beds are required in Ireland at this time?
Mr. Paul Lemass:
Roughly speaking, we believe that in publicly funded higher education institutes, there are about 200,000 full-time students. While we must acknowledge that the numbers are not perfect, the strategy would identify that of those 200,000, around 81,000 are living at home, 60,000 are in private rental, some 49,000 are in PBSA, and digs accommodation would be slightly below 10,000. That leads us to a figure of around 200,000. This is what we believe is the current make-up based on surveys that have been conducted through the HEA and based on the hard data we have on PBSA development.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Would Mr. Lemass mind running through them again? Is it 200,000 students in third level institutions?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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That is approximately 120,000.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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We are saying that roughly captures the overall student population.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Is it 49,000 who rent a room?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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It is interesting to get a snapshot. Regarding the Department's strategy, with the 42,000 beds over the next decade, is that student-specific accommodation?
Mr. Paul Lemass:
It is student-specific accommodation plus rent-a-room. We see the potential for rent-a-room to grow. The Revenue statistics on rent-a-room show that is has grown from 8,000 to 16,000 over the past seven or eight years. With promotion, we believe it is a viable option for some. It is not for all. I accept that-----
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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It is 16,000 overall now.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Mr. Lemass said that the bulk of them are students, at 10,000.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Rent-a-room is a core part of the strategy realistically.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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In relation to the student-specific accommodation, will Mr. Lemass provide me with a further breakdown in terms of on campus and off campus?
Mr. Paul Lemass:
At this point, I cannot. What we will be doing is engaging with the market to see if there are developers that sites off campus that would like to develop or would they prefer to take site on campus and develop it. At the moment, we are waiting to see how that plays out. I do not have that breakdown.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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What about the idea of a college providing this accommodation or does the Department see it all involving some element of private entity?
Mr. Paul Lemass:
Colleges do develop student accommodation. Until recently, the Department was not heavily involved in funding accommodation. There are 16,000 student beds across the universities at the moment on campus. Most of those were developed without the Department's support. If a university was minded to continue to develop on its own volition, that would be an option.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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That would be an option. On the rent-a-room, it is an important part albeit not a huge percentage of the overall numbers. At the same time, 10,000 beds are significant. Does Mr. Lemass see growth potential there?
Mr. Paul Lemass:
I do. It got a setback during Covid. People were reluctant to have people sharing in their houses. That is the reality. Since then, it has come back steadily. We would look to the accommodation recognition payment that is being paid for accommodation. As I understand, about 14,000-plus people are being accommodated under that. The willingness of people to open their homes and share their homes with someone else has been established. We also have statistics from the Department of housing that point to a high incidence of empty nesters - people with three- or four-bedroom houses and one or two people rattling around in them. There is quite a significant potential-----
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I take Mr. Lemass's point. On the recognition payment, many people may see a humanitarian element to that. They might not see the same humanitarian element when it comes to students. Obviously, there is a significant need there for it.
I have raised this in the Dáil in the past. The €14,000 limit on the rent-a-room scheme has not been adjusted in several years. Has the Department got a position on that? It should be increased because rents have increased significantly. If we are genuinely to encourage householders to take people into their homes and if someone has three bedrooms free in a house, then we should be encouraging that those three bedrooms are utilised, and one quickly gets up to the €14,000 annual limit.
Mr. Paul Lemass:
We do not have a position. The statistics would suggest that the average is well below the €14,000 and the average rent foregone is well below. I will find it here somewhere. The average is around €8,000 for the amount of rent and the rent tax saving is about €2,500. For most people, €14,000 is not the threshold.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Does the Department not see if that limit was increased that there is huge potential in terms of people making other rooms available? Does the Department not see that as a main issue?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I will turn to the RTB briefly. Again, it is in a difficult position because forms of student accommodation fall under its remit and others do not. Those in private tenancies fall under its remit. Those in specific accommodation do. Those in rent-a-room do not. Regarding its overall workload, how much of that is taken up with student accommodation? Will the RTB give us an idea of how much of it is about student accommodation, whether it be general queries from those who are in rent-a-room, for example, or whether it is those who fall under its remit? I am trying to get a sense. How much of its workload is taken up with student-specific inquiries?
Mr. Brian Gallwey:
We have just under 40,000 SSA tenancies on the register. There can be more than one bed space in a tenancy, which could explain some of the differences between our figures and the HEA figures. In the private rental sector, we have just over 240,000. We also have about 55,000 AHB tenancies on the register. There are over 340,000 tenancies on the register currently.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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What is the traffic into the RTB in terms of queries, disputes and so on? Would it be broadly proportionate with the number of student accommodation versus-----
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I am just trying to get an understanding. It would be lower in the RTB's experience. Regarding those falling under the rent-a-room scheme, does the RTB take a lot of inquiries from that sector albeit that it does not fall under its remit? Does it get a lot of contact in relation to those types of arrangements?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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It would be interesting. There are changes in relation to the garden accommodation and concerns around rent-a-room. In my experience as a public representative, it generally has not been an issue in terms of the rent-a-room scheme. I wanted to get a sense from the RTB about if there are queries coming in regarding the rent-a-room scheme.
Ms Louise Loughlin:
As my colleague, Ms Murphy, mentioned on the student communication campaign, the level of understanding of the different types of tenancies or arrangements that students are entering into would be the main piece that we want to communicate when we do a student communication campaign at the start of each academic year. We try to drive the information through that.
Going back to the RTB's regulatory function, the investigations that I mentioned earlier represent around 7% of student-specific providers since 2023. This would be a higher proportion of investigations that we undertake versus private landlords in the private rental sector. Even though it is a smaller part of the overall regulatory framework for the RTB, we have had a specific focus on it over the past couple of years.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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When we look at the overall numbers, it is a small enough number of cases. When we look at the tenancies involved and the overall number of tenancies, is it quite a small number?
Ms Rosemary Steen:
It is a small number. I wish to add to what colleagues are saying. In some of compliance activities that we have taken, some of the most extreme cases can happen in that because there are very vulnerable tenants. As part of the director's updates, we have published some actions that we have taken against some providers who are clearly not co-operating with us regarding the types of rights that should be available to students in their accommodation. We have published a number of those details. It is a lower volume, but we can find and have found some extreme cases which we have tackled and are going to be tackling more when we publish those sanctions in later in year. I do not want to give an expression that everything in this sector is without concern. It is subject to what we would describe as activities of bad actors that can enter to exploit very vulnerable students, particularly students from overseas. We are putting more of our compliance activity around dealing with those more extreme cases. Some details on that will be available later in the year.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank Ms Steen. It is good to hear that. That is an important to come out of today from the RTB that it is determined to address those issues of compliance and it is very focused on that. That is an important message.
Donna McGettigan (Clare, Sinn Fein)
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I wish to return to the issue of digs regulations. I commend the RTB on the work it does. I have had constituents in my office who have been helped by it and various measures. However, knowing where you are renting, while important, still does not give you the protections needed.
It was said that students choose the rooms. In many cases, they do not. They have no choice but to go into them. That is another issue to be addressed. They should be afforded the same protections as other renters. In this regard, the Government has fallen down. It needs to introduce regulations on this. If someone is getting a very handy €14,000 tax break, it should come with some obligations. Students need protections. The one thing missing in all this is the students’ voice, because students are saying the complete opposite of what is being said here.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Does the Deputy want anyone to make a specific comment?
Donna McGettigan (Clare, Sinn Fein)
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Does Mr. Lemass want to respond?
Mr. Paul Lemass:
I will respond. The aspiration is to increase the supply of rent-a-room accommodation, as well as purpose-built student accommodation. As more and better quality supply comes on stream, students have a choice. The Deputy made the point that people have no choice as to where to go. That is not where we would like to be. We would like to be in a position in which a student has a choice. By stimulating the supply of rent-a-room accommodation, as well as other forms, students will be free to choose. We hope that higher quality accommodation will be taken up and that lower standard accommodation, or accommodation where the landlord has a poor reputation, will not. Over time-----
Donna McGettigan (Clare, Sinn Fein)
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Again, that is a hope. It is not certainty or protection for students.
Mr. Paul Lemass:
No, but as you promote increased supply and increased participation in the market, you are likely to see better quality accommodation coming through. Another Deputy talked about the construction of a purpose-built Shomera. There is a range of options that contribute towards supply. With more actors in the market, you expect to see better choice for students.
Donna McGettigan (Clare, Sinn Fein)
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It is great having the choice, but the students will still not have the same protection as all renters. That is my point.
Laura Harmon (Labour)
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I thank all the guests for their presentations. There are many concerns about the deficit of purpose-built student accommodation and the regulation of the sector. Eleven years ago, I was president of the national students union and we were promoting the rent-a-room relief scheme. I remember sending out thousands of leaflets to people’s houses to try to promote the scheme. However, I believe there has been over-reliance on that scheme over the past decade and no meeting of targets in terms of building purpose-built student accommodation.
I have a number of questions. First, on modular homes in people’s gardens, is the arrangement being used as a short-term workaround in response to failures in delivering purpose-built student accommodation? Is the RTB worried that this is going to create a shadow rental market? Will it have any role in regulation in this regard?
Is the RTB seeing overcrowding regularly? I know it is very common for English language students to be living in overcrowded accommodation. Is this something the RTB is seeing in reports or complaints?
DCU, for example, has shown how service charges have been used to increase the total cost of student rents beyond those dictated by RPZ rules. Is this a concern of the RTB? Does the RTB have a role in regulating this? Does it need to be clamped down on? Do we need more regulation covering service charges and what can and cannot be charged? How does someone prove a charge is necessary, for example? Should there be more onus on colleges to prove it? I realise I have asked many questions, but the witnesses should feel free to answer them in whatever order suits.
Ms Louise Loughlin:
I thank the Senator. On modular homes and the question about whether we are concerned about a shadow economy, currently a modular home is viewed by the RTB as entailing a private rental tenancy if it is a separate unit with its own entrance. It would come under RTB registration. Depending on what the legislation on the new scheme looks like, it will be a case of whether the modular homes come under the RTB. My understanding is that it will be treated as a licence arrangement as opposed to a rental arrangement. That involves a policy decision. The RTB would implement that, as required by the Government.
The second question was on overcrowding. This tends to be more a matter for local authorities and a matter of standards rather than a matter necessarily for the RTB. Fire safety standards tend to be covered. We always encourage students and tenants, including English-language students, whom the Deputy referred to in particular, to engage with the relevant authority regarding overcrowding.
On service charges, we do not have specific information on the DCU example mentioned. However, the best option for a student or any tenant in the situation in question is to bring a dispute case to the RTB if they believe the rent being set is not appropriate. If they bring a dispute case to the RTB and are successful, the landlord can be required to refund what has been overpaid. That is our recommendation.
I believe we have some further information on the service charges. My colleague Sinéad Murphy might comment on it.
Ms Sinéad Murphy:
We have published guidance on the service charges. As the director mentioned, we wrote to modular SSA at the start of the last academic year in relation to this. To be very clear, it can be lawful to increase service charges, as long as they are always paid separately from rent under rental law. If the lease is clear that the service charge has always been separate, the service charge increase is not subject to the RPZ restriction or the new national rent control rules. However, if a service charge was previously included in rent, either in the current tenancy or a past one, a landlord cannot take it out of the rent, keep the rent the same and increase the service charge separately. We have been trying to communicate clearly that you cannot use a service charge to circumvent the national rent control rules but that it is legally permissible, once service charges have always been separate, to increase service charges in line with cost. We give advice on best practice in this regard. The landlord should communicate with the tenant the extent to which the service charge has increased and present evidence. Charges should be increased only in line with the extent of the inflationary increase, as opposed to an overall increase.
As Ms Loughlin has said, we encourage tenants who believe their landlord has used the service charge to circumvent rent restrictions to bring a dispute to the RTB.
We will be meeting SSA providers again on 12 May through a webinar. As we have already mentioned, there are changes to the SSA registration process this year and new rent control rules we need to communicate to SSA providers, but there will be a heavy compliance focus and a message in the webinar covering the key practices regarding service charges, deposits and advance rent payments. We will be addressing any common misunderstandings or misinterpretations we see in the webinar for SSA providers on 12 May.
Laura Harmon (Labour)
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Does Ms Murphy believe there are loopholes in the law in this area that need to be addressed? Does the law need to be tightened up?
Ms Sinéad Murphy:
These rules apply to all landlords, and if a service charge has always been paid separately to rent, that is permissible under rental law. I do not know that I would describe it as a loophole. It would probably be a disincentive to supply for private landlords if they had to absorb inflationary costs in service charges as part of rent. We need to be conscious that the rules apply to all tenancies, not just to SSA provided by universities.
Mr. Paul Lemass:
The Department very much welcomes the fact that the RTB has an enforcement role. We have liaised with the RTB on a number of issues where things have come to our attention. We believe that is a very good thing. The Senator referred to the circumstances 11 years ago. The option was not available then. The enforcement function is very helpful.
Rent-a-room digs accommodation is very different because you are living in the same house with the person who owns it. The context of a process where someone would have to take you to court to ask you to leave their home, and get a court order enforcing it, takes time. The RTB enforcement process takes time. If that was in your own house, that would mean you would be living with someone for six or eight months while you got through an enforcement order. The nature of rent-a-room accommodation is very different and this has to factor into how we respond to it.
As regards an overreliance on it, most of the PBSA in the country was built in the last 25 years. Before that, there was hardly any PBSA other than the traditional Trinity College Dublin rooms and things like that. Most people actually lived in either private rental or digs accommodation 25 years ago because there was no PBSA.
Laura Harmon (Labour)
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Just to clarify, when targets from the new student accommodation strategy are being reported on, will students living in modular homes in gardens be included as part of it?
Mr. Paul Lemass:
We will be reporting on rent-a-room, and if it is treated as rent-a-room, then it will come in under that. In reality, the statistics I gave to Deputy McGrath earlier would indicate that one in four students is now living in PBSA. I am pretty sure it was not anything like that 25 years ago. The incidence of PBSA is growing and its share of the market is growing. This strategy does not rely on private rental growth, so the share of PBSA will grow even further. Regarding the use of modular accommodation, that is a matter for the Department of housing. We do not have a position on it. As regards the DCU costs, I think the RTB has addressed that issue.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I have a few supplementary questions. Mr. Lemass gave a breakdown of the overall figures. He mentioned 200,000 students, with approximately 80,000 living at home. That gives 120,000, and he gave the breakdown in that regard. When we look at it from the perspective of the figures, it looks as if everybody is catered for. In reality, as we know, there is a scramble for accommodation every year. There is a chronic shortage of student accommodation. Evidence certainly exists that people are making choices to go to college near home, for example, so they do not have to find accommodation because of the difficulties in doing so. Equally, there is evidence of people having to travel very long distances from their place of residence to college. The situation is quite significant in that sense, and I imagine this is probably not information that the Department captures in terms of those personal choices being made. Is there any data in relation to this aspect?
Mr. Paul Lemass:
There is some data. The HEA survey of students found that, of those living at home, 18%, or around 15,000, had commutes in excess of an hour and a half each way. The strategy recognises this fact and accepts this kind of commute is detrimental to the student experience. It is for this reason that those 15,000 students, that cohort, is deemed to need accommodation even though they are living at home. The 42,000 additional beds we are proposing include those 15,000 students plus an additional 27,000 students to account for natural demographic growth. It is recognised that it is not good the way it is at the moment.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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It is part of the Department's figures in respect of its projections.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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That is being taken on board.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Of the 42,000 beds to be provided, what is seen as the current need in relation to that figure? Growth is being projected there over a period of time. Right now, however, what is the shortfall in terms of beds?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Effectively, that 15,000 is the figure for the shortfall.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Those people who are making personal choices to circumvent the shortage of accommodation, effectively.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Most certainly, yes.
Mr. Paul Lemass:
In addition, the location of some of the very substantial courses in areas like pharmacy and veterinary medicine in places like Waterford and Donegal now means that people who would traditionally have had to go to Dublin or Cork to study those courses can do them much closer to home as well. All these things are contributing towards making education more accessible, but it is also recognised that of those commuting from home, roughly 15,000 are undertaking excessive commutes.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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It is welcome that that aspect is captured and is part of the projections. Of the 42,000 beds to be provided over the next decade, and this was touched on earlier, are there some sort of targets in terms of year two, three, four and five?
Mr. Paul Lemass:
We have not broken it down in annual targets because it does take time to mobilise the sector. As I mentioned to one of the Deputy’s colleagues earlier, a pipeline of 2,735 beds has commenced on site now. That excludes the development being referred to in Limerick, which accounts for a further 1,400 beds. We think there is a good response from the market, and we also feel that the response from the rent-a-room sector is good too and it continues to grow. It is not going to be a steady 4,200 beds a year for ten years, but we do feel that we will ramp up quickly.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Turning to the RTB, since the rental reforms came in on 1 March, we have not yet had a new college season. We will not have one until the end of the summer, when the new college season will kick in. There is obviously greater churn in student accommodation, so a reasonable number of new tenancies will be created. Will the RTB advise on how it is preparing for this? The changes are quite significant in terms of resetting rents and so on. Does the RTB have a plan in place to try to address these challenges?
Ms Sinéad Murphy:
Our preparations for the next academic year cover a number of areas. One concerns changes to our registration process. We have just commenced a project in that area. We now need to collect additional information from SSA landlords at the start of the academic year to publish a rent register equivalent to our private rental register. We have not previously captured floor area, building energy rating, BER, and things like that which will be required for the new register. The new academic year is a great opportunity for us to get all the updated data in.
We will also have to collect rent-setting information from landlords. There is a new requirement that they must now submit the rent-setting notice to us at the start of the tenancy, so we will be getting a whole range of new data in. We are working on updating the registration process now and, as I mentioned, we have invited all SSA providers in on 12 May. We are going to talk them through those changes to the registration process and the new rent-setting requirements. We will be going through very clearly what those new rent-setting rules are. The big thing for the SSA sector is that it is just as you were in terms of the 2% annual increase. There is no reset to market rents until 2029 for those providers. It is about being very clear on this aspect and to avoid any confusion.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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In private tenancies, then, there is the potential for rent resets.
Ms Sinéad Murphy:
Exactly, and that brings us to the other side of things, which is the student campaign. We run an annual student campaign. Last year, we prepared information leaflets, a campaign landing page and video information. We circulated a digital toolkit to all student unions and to university student support services to advise them of the resources and information available. Last year, we had a big focus on explaining the difference between the different types of tenancies, and this year, additionally, we will be putting in information on the changes around rent setting as they apply to students, which will depend on the tenancy rental arrangements of the accommodation they are living in. As we said, we got a high level of traffic to the website last year, with about 44,000 people going there. We are hoping to work together with stakeholders, like Aontas na Mac Léinn Éireann, AMLÉ, and other groups, to increase knowledge, awareness and engagement even further.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Okay. In terms of the private tenancies, where there is the potential for rent resetting in the run-up to the new academic year, in terms of the market rent and the RTB’s determination of the market rent, does it feel it is equipped to deal with this in the coming months?
Ms Sinéad Murphy:
It is up to landlords to demonstrate they are compliant through the rent-setting notice. We will be focusing on making tenants aware that their landlord must provide them with a rent-setting notice and a satisfactory explanation as to how the rent set represents market rent, and on raising tenants' awareness of their right to bring a dispute if they believe the rent setting is not in accordance with market rents.
What is also probably important to get out there is the awareness that not all tenancies will be allowed to reset to market rents this year. It really does depend on why the last tenancy in the property ended. This is another thing the landlord has to explain in the rent-setting notice. The basis on which they have set the rent must be explained. If the last tenant left voluntarily, the landlord needs to explain that was the basis on which they believe they are now allowed to reset to the market rent. It is very important that the tenant is aware of the right to receive this information and that landlords are aware that this information must be submitted to the RTB.
As part of a broader follow-up, we also intend to do public information campaigns around the rental law changes. We will be running a further campaign to follow up and give more detail to landlords in relation to the rent setting requirements.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I seek clarification on something relating to rent resetting. If a tenant feels the rent is not in line with market rent and is well above market rent, for example, is the onus on the tenant to make the complaint or does the RTB potentially pick up on that issue?
Ms Sinéad Murphy:
It is in the tenant's best interest to bring a dispute case to the RTB. They could report the landlord to the RTB for an investigation but an investigation cannot order the landlord to return overpaid rent to the tenant. Whereas, if the tenant brings a dispute case the dispute hearing can order overpaid rent to be returned to the tenant and they can award damages to the tenant. It is not a case that they cannot report it-----
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I am asking in terms of resetting rent in the Act. Let us say there is an entirely new tenancy in a private tenancy situation where previous tenants left of their own free will so there is the potential for a rent reset. If the tenant, who is a student, feels that rent is above market value is that something they need to complain to the RTB about or does the RTB have red flags that will go off if a particular rent is asked in a particular area?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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So it is the tenant that raises it, then?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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So, the RTB is proactive in that space in terms of red flags.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Those that are outliers. That is good. Does Mr. Gallwey want to comment?
Mr. Brian Gallwey:
We published the individual property level analysis. We have done this two years in a row. It is based on data we gather through our annual registration process. It essentially tracks rent levels at a property level, rather than the rent index which looks at a group of properties and compares the average rent for a group of properties with a similar but different group of properties at a different point of time. This allows us to track where rents have increased at a property level above the 2%. The ESRI has undertaken the analysis for us. For the first two years it has allowed us to identify where landlords have increased the rent above a certain threshold. Off the back of that we have undertaken compliance campaigns and written to those specific landlords.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Okay. That is good.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I have a few questions. Mr. Lemass mentioned being a student 25 years ago. I may be a little bit north of that since I was a student myself renting a room in digs. There was actually three of us in a room back then. That was not uncommon. The vast majority of people were in digs in college. Things have changed a lot since then.
In the introductory statement read by Mr. Lemass there are mentions of supply, viability and the need to support the development of purpose-built student accommodation, PBSA, on campuses and how that is the way we need to go. There is still an impediment there because there are planning permissions for around 15,000 units for student accommodation throughout the country, with the vast majority in Dublin, that are unbuilt. There is something missing between the viability of those apartments being developed and the status quo. What are we proposing to do to make sure we start those developments? We have a shortfall. We want to address supply. There is something stopping that so we need to bring in some mechanism or put some support structures in place. What are we going to do to make that happen?
Mr. Paul Lemass:
Some have already happened. The reforms to rent is an important signal to the market and people have responded very well. When we met developers during the development of this strategy, the number one issue raised was the rent cap. The rent cap alone will enable them to adjust their projections and that would make it more viable. The VAT reform that means they can sell at 9% not 13.5% will also help. We have introduced standardised designs that mean that it is not obliged to have an en suite bathroom, which means the size can be reduced and facilities can be shared in that way.
The one that is called out in the strategy is the nominations agreement where we would enable a university to commit to taking a number of beds if it were to enter into a nominations agreement with the developer. That developer could then go to a financier and say it has pre-sold half the beds for five years. We are hoping that will tip the needle. We must be careful and calibrate it because we are also hoping the private sector, of its own volition with the changes to VAT and rent, will build anyway. We know they are because there are 2,730 on site as we speak. There are some that will happen with the market based on the existing changes that have been introduced, fiscal and regulatory, and some that will be stimulated a bit more based on the programmes we have set out, including nominations agreements, in the strategy.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Regarding the rent-a-room scheme, I was aware a number of years ago there was a shortage of accommodation in the Technological University of the Shannon at Athlone and the student union did leaflet dropping and managed to come up with a sufficient number of bed places to make sure no student was without accommodation. There needs to be a nationwide campaign on that because there are a lot of houses that are under-utilised, where the bedrooms are empty. The fact that somebody can earn up to €14,000 tax free is quite an incentive.
We have to find a medium somewhere. A number of weeks ago we had a Bill that was being introduced and AMLÉ was here with Deputy McGettigan. We need to have a certain level of protections for people in those situations. We must find some sort of mechanism to give that protection to those tenants and students.
Another issue, which relates more to the RTB, is deposits, particularly with students. We have heard lots of stories of deposits being laid and a percentage never get it back even if the accommodation is left as it was. Is there any merit in some sort of independent system through the RTB where that deposit could be held rather than with the landlord and at the end of the tenancy, it is either withheld or paid back to the student to ensure we do not have situations where landlords are withholding that deposit wrongly?
Ms Louise Loughlin:
The current system means a tenant in that situation can bring a dispute for return of their deposit and we do see those types of cases going through each year. It can successfully see the deposit being returned to tenants, whether they are students or non-students. That can happen.
In respect of the piece around the provision of a independent deposit protection scheme similar to what happens in the UK, for example, there is provision made around that but it has not been implemented. That would really be a policy matter for the Government to implement. If the RTB was asked by Government to implement such a scheme it would require significant resources for the RTB to manage such a scheme and would require significant investment in systems because it would flag a number of issues around holding of moneys, which is a very significant undertaking for a public body.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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What about a bank account earning interest?
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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It would give peace of mind for the students where there are high deposits. We do know there are a lot of incidents where they do not get the money back and they do not go down the route of the RTB.
Ms Louise Loughlin:
I would encourage public representatives when coming across those instances to encourage the tenants to bring a case to the RTB. We can do it through mediation. It is free for students to do. They do not have to talk to the landlord directly. Our mediators talk to both parties and it can result in good outcomes for students. I encourage people to avail of that service if members are coming across it in their work.
Mr. Paul Lemass:
Regarding promotion, the Department is very much behind promoting rent-a-room. Since August 2022 or perhaps August 2023, every year we run a campaign to promote the scheme with homeowners near universities around July and then in August, when the CAO offers are out there is a further campaign to promote it to students as a viable alternative for accommodation.
We have been doing that for the past three or four years. We do it every year as a campaign, mainly on the radio and social media. It has been led by the Department and has gone out every year for the past three or four years. It is a standing event that is generating additional supply.
The strategy calls out a role for each university to adopt its own strategy and to take an active role in the promotion and oversight of student accommodation. I refer to local knowledge and the kinds of incidents of abuse that people talk about, or retention of deposits in rent-a-room. The place to feed that back is locally through the student accommodation office. Most universities run a thing called Studentpad or a similar system on which they advertise properties. They can then form a view as to whether a property is suitable or whether a landlord is behaving appropriately. It allows some kind of oversight on the part of the university. If a student goes through the university student accommodation office and the university Studentpad portal, they are less likely to encounter the kinds of bad experiences others have had.
Another thing to note is that we are committed to research with the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB, to understand a bit more about this area and about what it would take to convince people to rent out rooms as landlords and licensees or as students.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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We have a significant percentage of international students coming into our universities and paying quite large fees. I know there are some institutional investors that would particularly prioritise development accommodation for students who might be in a position to pay higher rent, but there seems to be an impediment, within legislation, etc., to them developing. Is that something Mr. Lemass is aware of?
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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It is more the investment coming into the country to build that seems to be the impediment. They are withholding them coming in and investing and developing specifically for the international students who are coming in, which would then open up more rental accommodation for other students.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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All right. I thank Mr. Lemass and call Deputy Butterly.
Paula Butterly (Louth, Fine Gael)
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Apologies; I was at another committee meeting. My question regards campus accommodation for students. For me, it always seemed like a no-brainer. With campus accommodation, you are going to have a consistent turnover of students over 30, 40 or 50 years. Why have we not been quicker to enter to agreements with the colleges and universities to utilise land and put accommodation in place on campuses that is affordable for students to rent, particularly in circumstances where we know that, once it is built correctly, it will be used again and again and you are always guaranteed to fill the beds? I have always found that perplexing. We have rent-a-room and a lot of other initiatives, but I feel we are always tinkering at the edges rather than just getting in and building campus cities, shall we say, within our colleges and universities. Will one of the witnesses indicate why we cannot do that?
Mr. Paul Lemass:
The Deputy has summarised broadly the objective of the strategy in that we now have five technological universities that we did not have five years ago. They have campuses and proposals for the development of accommodation on campus. Those proposals are being actively considered as part of the higher education student accommodation programme, as well as near-campus or off-campus private developments. Both are front and centre in the strategy.
Paula Butterly (Louth, Fine Gael)
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How long does Mr. Lemass think it will take to make a decision on that and get diggers on site?
Mr. Paul Lemass:
On the first phase, we would hope to have tenders early next year. That is in Cork, Dublin and Galway. In regard to diggers on site, it depends. If it is an existing site with planning permission, those involved might be able to move quicker. If it is a university campus that does not have planning permission, we would have to go through that as well. We are actively involved in getting a programme off the ground that will consider the provision of sites under licence, the provision of nominations agreements and the servicing of the site to enable private development on campus.
Paula Butterly (Louth, Fine Gael)
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There has been a great deal of discussion been around planning exemptions lately, such as in respect of modular builds at the back of houses. Should such accommodation on campus not be exempted? Provided it fits all the building regulations and is up to standard, surely there would be a case for exemptions to build this sort of accommodation. We are in a crisis, and it is a good fit and solution in terms of student accommodation. Surely there is a case to be made for planning exemptions.
Mr. Paul Lemass:
In the first instance, we are asking universities to engage with the local authority to establish that a site is suitable for residential development and that permission be given, or that there can be outline planning permission or pre-planning meetings to establish that. We need to understand that process a bit more before we start getting into exemptions. It is not something we had envisaged thus far but, by the same token, that is partly because in many cases people have land on campus and the area is potentially zoned for residential.
Paula Butterly (Louth, Fine Gael)
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We also know that people can be particularly litigious. They have the right to object, and very often, in principle, they agree, but, once a planning application is submitted to a local authority, the objections start to flow. Then the whole process stalls; it can stall for a number for years. This would be detrimental in the context of student accommodation.
Mr. Paul Lemass:
Yes. I am aware of one university that had a long struggle to get student accommodation approved. The Department is now funding that development. Other than that, the other ones the Department has worked on have not had the same issue with planning. It is something we keep a watching brief on. Other than one particular case - I know a high-profile case - we are not aware of particular on-campus development planning issues.
Paula Butterly (Louth, Fine Gael)
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I have a final question. Mr. Lemass has been very patient. How will the model be funded?
Mr. Paul Lemass:
The strategy is clear that the scale of funding envisaged is beyond the capacity of the State and it is looking to private development to come in and fund. The quid pro quo would be access to a site for a period or to a nominations agreement off site or on site, and potentially access to site servicing funding. However, the bulk of the funding would absolutely come from the developer to develop, build and operate student accommodation.
The Department would address and is addressing affordability. It is doing it separately through things like the Student Universal Support Ireland, SUSI, grant scheme for non-adjacents, in which 30,000 students are benefiting from payments of up to almost €8,000 a year in the context of the special rate. There are also things like the rent tax credit, where a jointly assessed couple can receive a €2,000 credit on their tax if they have a child at university.
Paula Butterly (Louth, Fine Gael)
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That gives rise to one further question; that is, until Mr. Lemass answers the next one and then there will possibly be another. Where there is private partnership, are the students in the relevant accommodation considered to be tenants or licensees?
Paula Butterly (Louth, Fine Gael)
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They would fall under the RTB then.
Paula Butterly (Louth, Fine Gael)
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That is perfect. I thank Mr. Lemass.
Donna McGettigan (Clare, Sinn Fein)
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I have a quick question. In the strategy, there is €2.1 billion for capital infrastructure for the period 2026 to 2030. Could Mr. Lemass give us a breakdown of where that money will go?
Donna McGettigan (Clare, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Mr. Lemass.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I have a couple of questions about something Mr. Lemass said. I come from Longford. The Technological University of the Shannon, TUS, in Athlone is my local university. It is a fantastic facility. I can see there are opportunities there for development but it is about putting the proper supports in place to make it happen. I have hopeful about this new strategy. I met the senior staff and the students' union in the college to make sure this happens.
Athlone is a growing town. We must prioritise the midlands for growth. If Sean Mulryan, the developer, has his way then Athlone will have a population of 100,000 by 2040. We need that accommodation for a growing university. I hope that proper supports are included in the strategy to make this happen and to make sure we utilise existing planning permissions to provide sufficient student accommodation.
The rent tax credit may be a finance issue but are there any figures for the number of claims on that for student accommodation versus those who are entitled to that tax credit? A low number of people have claimed the tax credit. Has the Department any figures from the point of view of students?
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Does Mr. Lemass know what percentage of people are entitled to claim versus those who lodged a claim?
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Yes. They would be able to claim in the one property.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I recall that at the time the tax credit was introduced there was very low take-up on claiming. When the tax credit was mentioned, I wondered if there was a breakdown in figures but there is not.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Athlone as well.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I know but there are two ends of the Shannon.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I will keep tabs on it. I thank all the representatives from the RTB, including Ms Steen who participated online, and the Department for coming here to discuss matters.
I propose that we consider other business in private session.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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We will resume our discussion on housing delivery plans and the expert group on accommodation for students. I welcome the following representatives: from Aontas na Mac Léinn in Éirinn, AMLÉ, Mr. Bryan O'Mahony, president; from the PBSA Council Ireland, Mr. Ciarán McIntyre, founder and head of real estate at Elkstone Partners, and Ms Niamh O'Connor, founding director of Summix; and, from TUS Midlands Midwest Student Union, Mr. Dara Lenihan, president.
Before we start, I wish to explain some limitations to parliamentary privilege and the practice of the Houses as regards references witnesses may make to another person in their evidence. The evidence of witnesses physically present, or who give evidence from within the parliamentary precincts, is protected pursuant to both the Constitution and statute by absolute privilege. Witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in any such way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative they comply with any such direction.
The opening statements have been circulated to members. Is it agreed that we will publish them on our website? Agreed. I will now ask each group to make its opening statement. I ask them to keep it to a maximum of three minutes, which was indicated prior to the meeting.
Mr. Bryan O'Mahony:
I thank the Chair and members of the committee for the invitation to address them today. Aontas na Mac Léinn in Éirinn represents over 400,000 students across the island. The message we are receiving from them is clear. The student accommodation crisis is quickly becoming the single biggest barrier to higher education in Ireland. When we fail to house students, we force them into the private rental market, adding to the strain of an already pressurised system where students are left competing directly with young families and workers. We need to invest in young people and to recognise that investment in student accommodation is investment in vital education infrastructure. Relying on the private market to navigate those barriers has resulted in a fundamentally broken system. If the economic reality dictates that private developers must deliver luxury units charging well over €1,200 or €1,400 a month just to make a return, then the private delivery model is fundamentally incompatible with student needs. For ordinary students who rely on the SUSI grant or are juggling part-time work, those rents are simply impossible for us to meet.
We value our highly skilled workforce; it has been the primary driver behind the economic growth that we have seen over the past decade, but we are failing to take steps to stem the brain drain driving young people from our shores. This brings me to the Government's updated student accommodation strategy. By handing off responsibility to a private developer-led model, the strategy essentially guarantees that ordinary students are priced out before ground is even broken. The Government is scrambling to make up the shortfall by expanding the rent-a-room scheme because the delivery of built affordable units has stalled. We are now seeing exactly what this means in practice with the recent proposals to exempt modular units, essentially garden sheds, from full planning permission, allowing homeowners to rent them out. Let me be clear on behalf of the students of Ireland when I say that shoving young people into unregulated garden sheds is not a housing policy. People renting rooms in homes without renters’ rights is not housing policy. Students living in hostels is not housing policy. Handing off the responsibility of student accommodation to the private market is not housing policy; it is an abdication of responsibility which brings me to our primary demand for this housing committee today, namely legislation.
Currently, students living in digs - this will also soon be the case for those forced into these proposed garden cabins - are completely excluded from the Residential Tenancies Act.
They have no security of tenure, no RTB protections and no enforceable rights. They frequently face curfews, restricted access to basic living spaces and rules that change at short notice. We cannot allow a system where the State actively incentivises landlords to exploit a transient student population in unregulated backyard prefabs while leaving these students vulnerable to unfair treatment.
The challenges of delivery are clear, but the solutions must be State-led. AMLÉ urges this committee to advance three urgent actions. First, the Houses should pass digs legislation. We are calling on this committee to advance legislation to amend the Residential Tenancies Act. Digs and modular rentals must be regulated to give students basic, enforceable tenant rights. Second, there should be direct State funding. As the private sector cannot deliver affordability, the State must step in with direct capital funding to support HEIs to build publicly owned student housing. Third, on affordability, rent caps benchmarked against student income must be introduced for purpose-built student accommodation.
Students need secure, legislatively protected and affordable homes. We do not need luxury apartments we cannot afford and we do not deserve a shed at the bottom of a landlord's garden with only suggested renters' rights in agreements.
Ms Niamh O'Connor:
I thank the Chairman and members for the invitation to appear before the committee. I am here on behalf of the PBSA Council of Ireland, which represents the majority of existing and pipeline student accommodation across the country. Our members include investors, developers, operators and higher education stakeholders with experience both in Ireland and internationally. As a council we are evidence-led, with extensive primary and market research underpinning our work. We welcome the opportunity to contribute to what is now a very clear issue, namely, the gap between policy intent and delivery on the ground.
Demand for student accommodation in Ireland is strong and continuing to grow. Full-time student numbers have increased to over 215,000, with international student numbers rising even faster. This trajectory is expected to continue. However, supply has not kept pace. There is a national shortfall of at least 38,000 beds, rising to over 50,000 under more realistic assumptions. This gap is evident across Dublin and key regional cities and it is placing increasing pressure on both students and the wider rental market. It is important to be clear about the nature of the problem. This is not a demand issue and not primarily a planning issue. There is a substantial pipeline of schemes with planning permission already in place. The central challenge is delivery, and delivery is ultimately determined by viability. Planning permissions do not deliver beds but viable projects do. At present, too many consented schemes are not financially viable to build. About 35% of the pipeline is currently on hold despite having full planning permission. This reflects a combination of elevated construction costs, higher borrowing costs and ongoing uncertainty in the policy and regulatory environment. As a result, projects that would have been delivered just a few years ago are no longer progressing.
It is also important to consider how delivery is currently expected to come forward. A proportion of the pipeline is linked to higher education institutions and the HEA, and the Government strategy envisages significant delivery through State-led and public-private partnership, PPP, models. While we are supportive of increased State participation, it is unlikely delivery of the scale required can be achieved through a predominantly State-led model alone, so private capital will be essential. PBSA is a capital-intensive asset class delivered primarily by long-term institutional investment. That capital is global and mobile. It allocates across markets such as Spain, Italy and Germany where delivery conditions may currently be more favourable. Ireland remains an attractive market with strong fundamentals and demand, but capital will only be deployed at scale where there is clarity, consistency and viable delivery conditions. It is also important to recognise PBSA is not simply a subset of housing but critical national infrastructure. When purpose-built student accommodation is not delivered, students move into the private rental market and directly compete with families for the same homes. Each new student bed delivered has the effect of releasing housing back into the wider system.
We also recognise that affordability is a central concern, but affordability cannot be viewed in isolation from supply. Constrained supply is a contributory driver of affordability pressures. Increasing supply is the most effective way to improve outcomes for students. We welcome recent policy developments, including changes to VAT and design standards, which have begun to improve viability at the margin. However, these measures alone will not close the supply gap. The focus now must be on delivery. Accelerating delivery at scale depends on three things. The first is a policy framework that recognises PBSA as a distinct asset class and aligns with how it is financed and operated in practice. The second is targeted measures to restore viability and unlock the existing consented pipeline. The third is structured and ongoing engagement between government, higher education institutions and industry.
We are keen to engage constructively on solutions, including targeted mechanisms to support affordability where appropriate, particularly in regional markets. The PBSA Council of Ireland stands ready to support Government and this committee. Our members bring practical delivery experience, access to capital and evidence from international markets that are maybe more mature. We look forward to working with the committee to support the delivery of the student accommodation Ireland needs.
Mr. Dara Lenihan:
I thank the committee for the opportunity to speak at this committee on a crisis that greatly affects my generation. With the new student housing strategy now available, I would like to address three key asks of this committee based on potential opportunities we see to improve key areas for students in the sector. Our first ask is to push for legislation in the digs sector. For many years, students and landlords alike in digs have needed protections under legislation, with some difficult realities for people like not being allowed to use kitchens or getting kicked out due to a dispute. The TU sector currently relies the most heavily on digs, with current numbers showing 9,600 students across the country in digs. Do members know digs fall outside the remit of the RTB? This could be detrimental in cases where disputes arise and leave both parties open to losing out on hundreds of euro. Covering this, even with something as simple as a mock rent agreement to be provided to landlords, could make a world of difference. Rent-a-room needs this research desperately, and with local student union consultation, it would make it much simpler. Digs may fill some of the current gap in the market for student beds, but with a projected 10,000 beds forecast in this strategy for this sector, it is more vital now than ever.
Our second ask is for a focus to be brought to the deposit protection scheme. In Scotland it is mandatory for landlords to have a renter’s deposit held by a third party. This is under the Tenancy Deposit Schemes (Scotland) Regulations 2011 and it means landlords must leave the rent in the hands of a trusted third party who holds it until a renter decides to move out. If the landlord does not respond within 30 days after the tenant was moved out, it is returned to them automatically. An organisation akin to the RTB could then handle the deposits. This would be especially helpful for those in digs accommodation.
My third ask is for more research to be done on the public-private accommodation sector. Currently, the attitude towards this is that it will be slow to come and expensive when it gets here. Focusing on projects with planning permission is vital to moving this work along as each year a new cohort of students and graduates have missed out on the student experience. I would highly encourage an equal focus on protecting the rent prices from soaring in these agreements and ensuring that we are means-testing the students who need it most, even if it is only a portion. This is a crisis, and with the committee’s help, we can give back to the young people and students who are our future.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I invite members to ask questions.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the representative groups before us. As they probably know, we had a session earlier with the Department of higher education and the RTB. Part of the difficulty when talking about student accommodation is the different types. You can have students in ordinary private rental accommodation, student-specific accommodation on or off campus, and then there is the rent-a-room option. It can be difficult to capture the full data on this, but I think we all accept there is a significant shortfall in the accommodation available to students. There is a strategy outlined by the Department of higher education to bring forward 42,000 units over the next decade, which, as the Department readily admits, is a significant challenge. It is made up of both student-specific accommodation and the rent-a-room scheme.
That point is well made.
There is a shortage. We need to bridge that gap. We recognise that at the start of every academic year there is significant pressure on students to find accommodation. There is enormous personal stress. In addition, we recognise that a lot of personal decisions are made as to where to go to college and whether or not you can stay at home. Your choices become limited when there is a shortage of accommodation. We know there are students undertaking very long commutes, which is not healthy for their overall well-being and so on. It is a significant issue. In my view, there will have to be a combination of public and private approaches to resolve this. Looking at the overall housing crisis, the Government has said widely that an investment of about €20 billion per year is required to bring about the level of new supply we need, of between 50,000 and 60,000. The State is currently providing €9 billion of that, so private investment is an essential part of the solution. That applies to student accommodation as well. In my view, it absolutely has to.
I will pose some questions. I will start with the council, if I may. Ms O'Connor mentioned the shortfall. What was her estimate of it? Did she say 15,000 is the current shortfall?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Sorry, I thought I picked up a figure of 15,000. I am making a comparison with the earlier information we got. The Department had a figure of 15,000 in terms of-----
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Fifteen thousand in terms-----
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I do not want to misquote the Department. I think the Department in its figure of 42,000 was projecting not only future growth but also the current shortfall, so it is certainly much less than what Ms O'Connor says. That in itself is a challenge in terms of the estimate of the current shortfall because if we do not know what it is, it is hard to put a plan in place to resolve it.
May I ask another question of the council specifically? Ms O'Connor mentioned the measures around VAT and design and so on but said that was not enough to bring about the change we need.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Yes.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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What else is the council calling for, specifically?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Policy certainty.
Ms Niamh O'Connor:
-----gives confidence to the investor market. There is a consequence to a lot of the knee-jerk reactions that have happened. International capital and institutional capital are mobile. They will just go to an environment or a jurisdiction that is believed to be more stable, predictable and reliable.
Mr. Ciarán McIntyre:
Yes. Much of this is long-term, 25-year or 30-year pension money, and they need certainty for the lifetime of the investment. The legislative changes, as we said in our opening statement, are welcome. The one we would disagree with is the moratorium for three years to re-base to market. A challenge we find with that is that existing schemes are not being moved on, sold, in order that the capital can be recycled to go back in. It gives a lack of definition around the exit market for the private market. That is the one thing we would disagree with, but the other things are welcome.
Part of what Ms O'Connor says is that, as regards the viability gap, the VAT reduction absolutely has helped. The design is yet to be proven. Honestly, we think that is a marginal gain, but the reality is that there are high finance costs and very high construction costs, and it should be remembered that these are operating assets. They are not like a normal rental market, where it is passive. We acknowledge the affordability, of course, but the money students pay goes towards all the services, the utilities, etc. Looking at that, the percentage of cost of your overall income has almost doubled in five years. That is just down to inflation etc., but they are pressures that put upward pressure on rents and make schemes just not viable.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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There are a number of issues there.
I will come back to Mr. O'Mahony, if I may. He made a very strong case for public investment and Government-provided accommodation, which I think we would all support in principle, but it is just a matter of getting to the level we need to get to and the gap that is there in terms of the amount of investment and activity that would have to take place to bring us to where we would be required to be in terms of accommodation. He mentioned the rent-a-room scheme as well. He does not feel that is an appropriate way to provide student accommodation.
Mr. Bryan O'Mahony:
The rent-a-room scheme works for some people but it has not worked for others. I have been a full-time officer for my home union for a year and the national union for three years. I have had many students come to my door with issues about their bedroom doors being taken off and about not having access to the kitchen to cook, not being able to wash their clothes and being kicked out on a Friday. There are so many different issues. The scheme would be appropriate if there were regulations and protections around it. I can accept the stance that living with a family means a different type of rental agreement from traditional rental agreements is needed, but there has to be a middle ground. There has to be a way where students are protected. A landlord who was doing the rent-a-room scheme came to me and asked, "What is this RTB that this student keeps talking about? Am I meant to be providing RTB?" When I explained what it was and that it was not to do with digs, the landlord said, "Well, this student is just causing me an awful lot of trouble, so I think I will just get rid of him." I have had students ring me at 8 o'clock at night to say they have just been kicked out of their digs because they have had an argument with the landlord. While it is a family home, students are paying rent. If there is a tax credit attached, there should be protections for students.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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It is really about the lack of protections. I hear Mr. O'Mahony on that one. It is a reality in his life in terms of hearing these stories from students not having access to the kitchen, as he said, doors being removed and so on. There are real privacy and safety concerns in some respects.
If I may turn to Mr. Lenihan, there are similar issues from his point of view with the rent-a-room scheme and the lack of protections in place.
Mr. Dara Lenihan:
Yes, absolutely. It comes down to everything from deposit protection, as I mentioned, to the student's health. I had a student come into us about their experience of not being able to use the kitchen and then also having to cycle to college every day and having that issue where they were living off things like yoghurts or microwaveable foods. That was at college. They could only eat any kind of sustainable food during college hours. We are talking not just about students' livelihoods here, of where they live and so on, but also about their physical and mental health. It is really affecting people. I know we all have a bit of a giggle about the student experience and joke about how tough it is for students, but it is really tough on some people and it should not be that way. Any sort of legislation surrounding digs would be incredibly helpful, and the student movement would be entirely grateful.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Looking at the overall figures, out of approximately 120,000 students accommodated, according to the figures we got earlier, just shy of 50,000 are in specific student accommodation, about 60,000 are in private rented accommodation and then about 10,000 are in the rent-a-room scheme, approximately. That makes up about 120,000. Looking at the figures, then, it is a small enough proportion of the student population, but at the same time 10,000 represents a lot of students who are in a situation where, as the witnesses say as their representatives, they lack those protections and those key elements around security, protection, their personal security, access to key facilities within the household and so on. I think Mr. Lenihan and Mr. O'Mahony both agree there is a distinction to be made between that and regular private rented accommodation and the protections in place there but there should be some kind of hybrid model or "a middle ground", to use the phrase Mr. O'Mahony used, in terms of student accommodation, just to provide some level of protections compared with what is there at present.
Mr. Dara Lenihan:
Yes, definitely, especially with the projected 10,000 extra beds the Government hopes to find. As I mentioned, consulting with student unions would be highly important for that, just to hear what the main issues are going forward, because nothing happens until it happens, and a lot has already happened.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I think that is a key takeaway for the committee, based on the witnesses' evidence.
Donna McGettigan (Clare, Sinn Fein)
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I thank the witnesses for coming in and telling their stories. One thing I will say concerns the whole strategy and even the PBSA Council itself. I am not hearing the student voice coming through strongly. I do not think that the council is listening very well to the students on this. I know it is all about private investment. If we take the University of Limerick, the development is completely private. Castletroy recently got the green light for 1,400 beds at €300 million. That is going to be €214,000 per bed. How is the developer going to make a return on this? The rent will not be affordable if the developer is going to make a return on it.
One shocking figure I got from students of the Atlantic Technological University Sligo was that 13.4% of them were in emergency accommodation. This needs to be looked at, yet students are not being heard anywhere in this strategy. We cannot get any certainty on the strategy. We have asked questions. Projects are required to go through business cases to examine their feasibility. How many years is this going to take? Meanwhile, students are sleeping in their cars or going through long commutes. Students need to be at the centre. If we are doing anything for them, their voices have to be heard in this. I do not think that is happening with this. I did not hear it much in the submission from the PBSA Council, but I could be wrong. I know it is all about delivery.
I do not have much faith in the strategy because the last strategy's targets were missed. What is there to say that the targets will be met in this strategy?
I have been very strong on the issue of digs. With Deputies Farrell and Ó Broin, I brought the digs legislation Bill before this committee. That needs to be progressed and brought out as soon as possible. As Mr. Lenihan said, this issue is affecting people's mental and physical health. Students should be able to go into college and then back to where they sleep feeling safe and secure. They should be able to do so safe in the knowledge that they are going to be able to eat whatever they want when they want and not have to go through rules and regulations. There is too much emphasis on digs. One horror story is enough, but we are hearing many horror stories of what is happening to students.
People really need to sit up, listen and take these matters on board when doing things. They should stop looking at private investment. There is too much private investment. Mr. McIntyre said that there were concerns about the three-year moratorium. Does that mean that developers are now not going to come in and build because it is going to put them off? At the end of the lease of agreement, we do not even know what state these buildings are going to be in. Are we going to have use taxpayers' money to bring them up to standard? It could be up to 60 years. What state are they going to be in after that? Investors are not going in their build. They are going in there to build to make money. They are not going to invest in a building in the last few years before it is handed over.
I want to hear more from Mr. O'Mahony and Mr. Lenihan on the mental health side of this for students. That needs to be the message. The digs legislation will not just protect students, but also the landlords. It is a two-way street and is something that needs to be looked at.
Mr. Bryan O'Mahony:
When I started my student cycle back in 2018, the accommodation that I got cost me €280 a month. By the time I finished that four-year cycle, the same accommodation cost €650 a month. If I am looking at private accommodation in Cork or Dublin at the moment, it is €300 a week. That is extraordinary. I struggled to pay the €280 a month with the SUSI grant. I do not know how students are dealing with it now.
Regarding the issue of mental health, we talk about the student experience being the best years of our lives. We make jokes about how, since students are always going out drinking and that, they should be fine, but for students who are not engaging in clubs and societies any more and are travelling hours and hours to get home because they cannot afford the accommodation, what student experience are they looking at? The student experience of being broke. The student experience of burning out. Are these the best years of their lives? As I said in my statement, we talk about the brain drain, but if you struggle through your whole educational cycle and you pay money through your ears just to get your degree, no wonder we are leaving for a better life and for the greener grass over the hill. We have been so mistreated when it comes to our educational cycle, struggling to make ends meet.
When I was a student, a 50 cent packet of custard creams would last me four days because I could not afford to eat. This is the experience we are promising our students at the moment.
Mr. Dara Lenihan:
I have to agree with Mr. O'Mahony on a lot of things that we experience as students. I experienced them myself. You are trying to budget down to the cent to make sure you have everything you need. I remember buying 15 cent packets of noodles to try to keep me sustained during the week. As the members can imagine, that does not exactly work. Your brain starts going downhill when you are not eating, and you cannot study. Suddenly, you are then falling behind in class and dropping out is looking better. You are then seeing people who have graduated, or not graduated, taking off out of the country and living somewhere else. That looks all the sweeter as well because why stay here and suffer through four years, or less, just to get a degree? After that, you are going to leave anyway to find a degree, so you think you should go somewhere else.
Every year, we fail fourth years who started their student experience four years previously. Fourth years are walking out the doors of their universities every year having been failed by us because they have not had the student experience.
As Mr. O'Mahony mentioned, the engagement within societies and other after-college activities are down. Everything is down because no one has the time to actually go. I heard about one girl with a two-and-a-half-hour commute either way. I heard about someone with a four-hour commute in their semester who was trying to make it work. People cannot get accommodation, so they commute but the cost of petrol is really high and when they then get to college, there is no parking. It is a vicious cycle that they constantly live in trying to make it work and balance it all, but when do they get time to study for their exams? It is really tiring.
Donna McGettigan (Clare, Sinn Fein)
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Regarding the technical universities, TUs, being able to borrow to build their own accommodation, they have the land and, in some cases, the planning permission, yet they are going to borrow to lease back rooms through nomination agreements. Does that make sense at all? Would it be better for them to be given the borrowing framework to build so that they can invest and will then have a return on that investment?
Mr. Ciarán McIntyre:
The challenge with viability is more acute in the regions, whether that is Letterkenny, Sligo, Athlone or Tralee. The cost to run the schemes are the same and construction is the same, so you have all of the inputs that you have in Dublin, Cork and Galway, but you do not have the same level of rent that can be charged. I acknowledge the issue of affordability. There is a place for affordability, of course, and then there is a place for the private sector. They are not all the same.
Regarding the question of how the regional universities could provide accommodation, there are a number of ways. Nomination agreements are where the private sector is asked to come and the State says the developer can charge X amount of rent and the State will underwrite it if the developer cannot get people to rent at that level. That is a model that is used internationally and successfully. The alternative, as the Deputy mentioned, is for the colleges themselves to build and run accommodation. It is not for me to comment on that. I can speak from a private sector perspective. For private sector participation and delivery in the regions, nomination agreements are probably the only way to go about doing it. They would have to be very long dated.
The Deputy mentioned handing accommodation back to the State. Covenants can be put in place to prevent that so that it is not handed back in rag order and is still viable to continue being used. However, it is an acute problem in the regions. Without something, the housing needs of students in the regions will not be addressed.
I have spoken to the presidents and the colleges in Sligo and Letterkenny, in particular, and it is acute. When students are commuting, it destroys the night-time economy of a town and the student experience is horrendous. They are commuting and maybe staying three nights in a hotel or bed and breakfast. Everybody acknowledges the problem; it is about getting to the solutions.
If the private sector is called upon to be part of that solution, then nominations is the likely route that will deliver that.
Donna McGettigan (Clare, Sinn Fein)
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I am not saying that there is a part to play for the private sector, but to the scale that it is at the minute, there is an imbalance and it is wrong. We are not going to have affordable student accommodation if we keep going down the private route.
Mr. Ciarán McIntyre:
The Deputy is not wrong, but supply will help that. Affordability can be addressed directly to the students as well. It was mentioned that the SUSI grant is too low. There are other levers that the State can pull to open up accommodation to people who ordinarily would not be able to afford it. At the end of the day for us in the private sector, it is pure viability. As my colleague mentioned, capital is internationally mobile. In Europe, it is going into Spain, Italy and Germany and it is not coming in here for a number of reasons, as we tried to outline in our opening statement.
Ms Niamh O'Connor:
Regarding making sure that the quality of the building is returned back to the public in an adequate state, there are mechanisms such as dilapidation payments and other things that ensure that quality is not diminished in any way, shape or form. We are an enormous advocate for making sure that student life is as comfortable as possible in the regions. We see that entrepreneurs are becoming younger and younger. If we are giving students the ability to grow and be nurtured in an environment, education is one thing, but they are trying to set up businesses. That would alleviate the brain drain that Mr. O'Mahony referred to earlier. If they have had a great experience in the region, the cost of setting up a business in the region would be a lot lower. There is that economic impact if we just support them early on. It will have to be forms of Government intervention to enable it, but the private sector is here to help. There should not be hostility towards the private sector because we can bring a lot of experience, lessons learned and intellectual property.
We may have referred to capital too much in these conversations that we are having. Everything is talking about capital. A lot of it should also be down to experience. That is something that the PBSA Council of Ireland, alongside my esteemed colleagues here today, can bring in abundance. That is maybe what we should be looking to do and not have hostility between that public and private partnership and work on actual collaboration. It does not always to be collaboration from a financial participation perspective. We can all bring a lot more to the table through international best practice, what we have seen elsewhere and other types of mechanisms.
Donna McGettigan (Clare, Sinn Fein)
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It has to have the student voice at the centre.
Donna McGettigan (Clare, Sinn Fein)
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The terms that we are using of bringing students out of the private rental, we suddenly have an us and them and it is pitting them against others. If there was enough housing in the first place, we would not have that issue.
Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I apologise for coming in late. I was doing other stuff. We have the students' union, AMLÉ, and the PBSA here; is that correct?
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Yes. We have Mr. Lenihan from TUS Midlands Midwest Student Union, Ms O'Connor and Mr. McIntrye from the PBSA and Mr. O'Mahony as president of AMLÉ.
Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I read the student submission, and I agree with it all. I do not have a lot to add except that I am on their side. Why are there 14,000 unacted upon planning permissions? Does anybody know?
Mr. Ciarán McIntyre:
On the 14,000, by our estimate over 30% are on hold. It is down to viability. When they are built, they are not viable to run, so they will be never be built or it is unlikely unless the regulatory environment changes or something changes in the cost base. These are operating assets. A significant amount of the income that they generate is spent operating them. They are just not viable. They do not work and that is why they will not be activated. As we said in our statement, planning permissions do not deliver beds. Viability delivers beds. The challenge that we have is not necessarily planning. Planning has some issues, but it is not planning-led, by and large.
Ms Niamh O'Connor:
It is not just planning-led. There is construction cost inflation. Where a scheme might have been viable when the preacquisition due diligence and other things were being done, that construction cost inflation combined with higher cost of finance - because a lot of the finances have moved elsewhere and there is a scarcity of finance - makes it more expensive. That is coupled with the fact that capital or investors like to have a timeframe and time horizon on those things. The inability to underwrite for time and the fact there have been a lot of delays-----
Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I hear what the witnesses are saying about viability. The point that I picked up on is that the for-profit sector is never going to deliver affordable subsidised housing, which is what we need. Even when the private sector delivers student housing, it is completely unaffordable for students. Does AMLÉ and the students wish to underline that point? It is insane. I was looking at stuff up in DCU on the national university campus for €1,200 and €1,400. If we look at the stuff built elsewhere in Dublin city, in the same region, that is not serious for huge numbers of students. We have to go for a subsidised not-for-profit model in order to deliver affordable student housing. We cannot have things held up because somebody thinks it is not viable. It is needed. It is necessary for the students.
Ms Niamh O'Connor:
To potentially look in other areas, a way that we have tackled it elsewhere has been to create student hubs in parts of the cities that are still accessible but may be slightly further away from the central business district, CBD. In London, Wembley has delivered an enormous amount of student accommodation, as has Tottenham Hale. While they are not right in the city centre, they are on very strong transport connectivity links and it has been possible to deliver much more affordable products in those areas. That could be one mechanism of making it work. As was alluded to earlier, there is also the option of having a certain quantum or certain allocation of the student beds being affordable for students. In the UK, with the annual student loan provision, a certain quantum of bed spaces can only be delivered at one third of a student's student loan amount. I am just using other examples. It seems that in order to tackle this affordability crisis that other mechanisms are going to be needed.
Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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What does "other mechanisms" mean exactly? The mechanisms that I think students are advocating - and certainly that I would advocate - are that the State builds not-for-profit, affordable student accommodation, and it does it because it is needed. If it has to subsidise the cost, then that is what it has to do. Getting students educated and ensuring that they do not have to drop out because they cannot afford student accommodation or have to work ridiculous hours while they are studying and, therefore, do not have time to study are things we have to do for the students and for our society. The need for skilled people and qualified people has never been greater. The students are doing us, as a society, a favour by studying, yet we hear of viability obstacles to building places they need to live. It does not add up.
Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Do the students have anything to add about what we could do for them in terms of what they have proposed?
Mr. Bryan O'Mahony:
More perspective. The most immediate thing that can be done is legislation relating to digs. That is something we have sought for quite a long time. It is absolutely necessary in order to protect students. We are looking at purpose-built student accommodation having a percentage of beds set aside for SUSI-based students, people that are from low socio-economic groups or minority groups, and allowing people who traditionally do not have access to education to be given that step up but it is just not viable to pay €1,200 to €1,400 in rent. More beds at that market rate will only be based on an international market and not for the students that are trying to get accommodation at the moment.
Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Is Mr. O'Mahony looking for rent to be capped and for there to be maximum rent levels for student accommodation that is affordable.
Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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What would he consider to be affordable?
Mr. Bryan O'Mahony:
Our policy stance on affordability that we voted on at our comhdháil was 30% of what was the minimum wage. That has now gone up to a living wage. If that is what we realistically expect to be the target wage that students are going to be earning, then that should be what we are base it on. We have a number of students who are estranged from their families. Some families are in a financial position to support students but do not deem it to be so. I was told by my career guidance teacher not to go to college because I could not afford it. I still went; hence the reason I starved in order to try to make ends meet. It must be something that students can mainly afford and we deem that to be 30%, because it has always been the golden rule that 30% of your wage should be going towards your rent.
Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I thank Mr. O'Mahony.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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We will come back around again. First, I will make a couple of points. In regard to legislation on digs, a Bill was brought before this committee by Deputies McGettigan and Ó Broin. It was supported by members, including Government members, who sought to progress it. The witnesses have got the support of this committee in respect of the legislation, which is a committee of all parties and none, in the context of trying to progress it.
I do not agree with the use of the term "garden shed". Building standards are in place for those modular units, should they be put in place. The exemptions are coming in. Modular units are not garden sheds. There are building standards for those units. I wanted to point that out, particularly as it was referenced a number of times. There are strict criteria as to what can be built, and there are standards.
It was mentioned that the State should deliver. Is there any idea of the capital cost to the State of delivering the number of accommodation units needed?
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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It would be worth getting it. I do not think it is achievable. A mixture of private and public funding is needed to deliver any amount of housing. The State is not in a position to provide 100% of student accommodation. It is about working it out by students, the Department, the Government and private investors sitting down together to get the money into the country to deliver housing units.
One line in the PBSA Council of Ireland's introductory statement stands out, namely, "Our members bring practical delivery experience, access to capital, and evidence from international markets that have successfully increased supply at scale." What type of capital figure is there access to that could be invested in Ireland? The State would have to be involved in some way to support it and to bring down the rental value. I agree that we need to put a cap on student accommodation but we still need to support the investment. I firmly believe that to build any sort of housing or accommodation we need investors, developers and builders. Some people think they are bad, but we need all of those people to get the delivery of housing. What type of international best practice could be brought to Ireland? What type of capital is available to deliver? What type of figures could be delivered should the market be good here for investment?
Ms Niamh O'Connor:
I will begin, and I am sure Ciarán will want to come in. It is actually to bring it back. That capital was here. It went back as a consequence of a regulatory environment that was in their perception unstable or that had a lack of predictability, stability and reliability. It is about giving them the confidence that Ireland is a very stable market to invest in and that there will not be any kind of knee-jerk changes to policy or, at least, that there will be lead-ins in order that people will be comfortable if there do need to be any changes. It is a case of bringing that global institutional capital back. I went on a roadshow for my business. Many people look at Ireland as a very favourable jurisdiction in which to deploy capital. It has got a very favourable legal system. It is English speaking. It has one of the fastest growing economies in Europe. It has got a highly technical, highly educated workforce that ticks a lot of boxes. That is there already. There is a great sales pitch. It is about giving that confidence for the capital to come back.
In terms of best practice globally, we would be going across multiple jurisdictions, whether it is the Spanish having a lot of different types of products that deliver catered student accommodation. We have been talking about the student experience. If you went to Spain and you went to a lot of these purpose-built student accommodation communities, they are catered halls, so you have got that much more collegiate type of environment that comes from catered halls. That is one of the problems with digs. We have a great deal of evidence to suggest that students thrive in much bigger cluster flats, for example, where there are maybe ten or 12 bed spaces, because they have got much more of an opportunity to get on with somebody else within that cluster and do not feel as ostracised. Studios can sometimes be a bit limiting. Different people have different needs, but it is about having flexibility. It is about going to different markets and assessing what is working there and having, maybe, a broader cross-section of typologies here, because there will be some people who want a certain type of unit that may be at a different price point. I accept that accommodation needs to be more affordable but that it also needs to be very comfortable. That is what parents also need to know. They need to know that their child is in a very stable, secure, comfortable, well-managed environment. That is not what they are getting in digs accommodation. I am sure Ciarán has something to add.
Mr. Ciarán McIntyre:
Everything Niamh said about Ireland is favourable to attracting that capital to deliver. As she said, it is a subset of housing. It is different because it is operational as opposed to passive, but it is a subset of housing. I defer to the committee on the point about whether the Government can do it all on its own or if it needs private partnerships to deliver a portion. For my own reading of it as a citizen, it seems it is the case that we do need private capital.
Niamh mentioned Spain. Spain, Germany and Italy are delivering at scale. The money that goes into those countries is also allocated to Ireland, but Ireland will miss out as a result of viability. They are more viable in Spain, Germany and Italy. They are doing something to make it viable. They are getting the capital. They are delivering housing. Affordability needs to be addressed as well, but they are doing housing at scale, so there is no reason that Ireland cannot do it. It is there to be won.
Ms Niamh O'Connor:
One final point that we have not touched on yet, which is probably less relevant for my colleagues here, is that the regional market really struggles because it has to be taken into consideration that it does not have the strength of a summer rental market. If students are leaving after 41 weeks or 42 weeks, it is natural that it is going to be very challenging for any investor. Even the State is going to find there is a big gap. We must try to figure out other ways of understanding how we can bridge that viability gap over the summer, whether that is with summer courses or other types of things that the university can do.
Maybe we need to have longer semesters or longer terms. I do not know what it is, but-----
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I will not get Ms O'Connor to comment on that so.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Hearts and minds.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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The 25-year nomination agreement was mentioned, which is part of the proposal. Is that enough?
Mr. Ciarán McIntyre:
It is enough in terms of the length of time. A nomination is for 25 years. A pension fund will look out 25 years and say that a person has certainty of income for 25 years. The nomination is used internationally to deliver student housing so it will work but there will still be an element of affordability there, which will have to be tackled some other way. Otherwise, there would have to be a higher rent, which would exasperate affordability more and then, if they were not catered to, it would fall back on the State. The State would want to set it to a level that it is confident that it will not be picking up the slack and the operators will actually achieve those rental levels. As I said earlier on affordability, there are many mechanisms such as grants, etc., specifically for housing. That may be something. It is very hard to put it all into the housing mix, especially when we are saying to the private sector that it is not private sector. Deputy Boyd Barrett mentioned viability but, unfortunately, it is a real thing. Capital will not deploy if the thing is not viable.
Ms Niamh O'Connor:
The great safety net for educational institutions or the public sector with nomination agreements is that nomination agreements come hand in glove with service level agreements. There is an enormous amount of prescription that can come with the nomination agreement in terms of quality. That is a very helpful way of the State getting what it wants. Deputy McGettigan referred to a lack of quality in the long term but those service level agreements can give confidence around that.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Does Ms O'Connor had information on those other countries that she might be able to share with us in terms of what they are doing right and what we can try to push for as a committee?
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I thank Ms O'Connor. She can go directly through the secretariat.
I am going to be biased and go local. I am from County Longford. TUS Athlone is my local college. I have spoken to Department officials. There is a shortage of accommodation in Athlone. The students' union did a huge amount of work in promoting the rent-a-room initiative to cover that shortfall. Youngsters are still driving long distances to the college. There are no or insufficient parking places. I have heard of students getting cars clamped where they were parked somewhere and were not able to get back after lessons. We need to look at this holistically. Athlone is on the list the witnesses submitted. There is planning permission for a 250-bed student accommodation sitting on a desk. There is an opportunity there. I would like that to be progressed by the Department to make sure that accommodation is there because Athlone is a centre for growth for the country and its population is only going to increase. We need to start to plan ahead to make sure we have that student accommodation for our college. Mr. Sean Mulryan, the developer of Ballymore properties, spoke about his plans for Athlone. It is going to have a population of 100,000 within the next decade, so we definitely need to see that investment put in place. Could the witnesses pass on that information.
Mr. Lenihan is based in Athlone. He has highlighted the digs legislation. We discussed this here a number of weeks ago and we are supportive to move that on through the legislative process as a cross-party committee. Are there any other issues on the ground?
Mr. Dara Lenihan:
One of the things we are looking at is that the HEA does give a bit of pressure towards the university about getting that third income. For the nomination agreements, for us anyway, there would need to be rent caps for the universities to confidently back that they can actually get students in there for those months. With the student accommodation crisis, they will get people into those beds but I can understand the feeling that during the summer months, that might be a bit of an issue. It is vital that it would be rent capped and to make sure it is only used for student accommodation or in the summer as summer accommodation. If it does end up higher, it will turn into either international students being able to come over and use it or students with higher income means being able to use it, which would give relief to other types of accommodation in the area but that still then goes back to digs and stuff like that. One model that Mr. O'Mahony and I have discussed at points is co-op housing. He might come in on this because he knows more about it than I do. Up North and in a lot of Britain, they use this co-op housing model, which allows it to be student-run and student-owned. I will let Mr. O'Mahony come in on that.
Mr. Bryan O'Mahony:
This is not a model that is uncommon. When we go across Europe, it becomes a lot more common. There used to be one in the North that numbered in the thousands of beds. It is student-led democracy but owned by students, so it is paid at reasonable rates. Once the property is paid off, they pay it into a pot that expands into another house in another location. It is not just flats; it can be multiple houses and stuff like this. At the end of the day, we are talking about people who cannot really dedicate their time to full-time work. It is students so at the forefront, we have to look at affordability. At the moment, students are looking at different ways of supporting other students. Student unions are providing pantries. The University of Galway is doing huge food shops for students where they line up at 9 a.m. and can still be there by 1 p.m. just for the chance of getting some food for the week such as pasta and stuff like that. We are talking about how students are not dropping out. Students are not going to drop out because they are still looking for that better future for which they are planning and getting a degree. They will impoverish themselves to do that. They will starve. They will go through hygiene impoverishment and food impoverishment. The student movement as a whole is looking at other ways - any way - we can actually provide sustainable and affordable accommodation for students and co-op housing is one of the things we are continuously pushing towards. There are numerous examples across Europe where it works very well and very strongly in the thousands of beds.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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The Cathaoirleach brought up international practice. That was something I wanted to touch. We do not need to reinvent the wheel. There are jurisdictions around the world where a lot of student accommodation is provided and we just need to try to pick the models that work and see how we can adapt them. I will go back to Mr. McIntyre and Ms O'Connor. They mentioned the other countries that are getting the investment at the moment such as Germany, Italy and so on. If they are getting the investment, there is a return. How do they deal with the affordability issue? Investors want a return, which is understandable as that is business they are in, but how is the affordability issue dealt with in those countries?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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That is fine. The witnesses have the information that those countries are getting the investment at present-----
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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-----so there are more favourable investment opportunities
Ms Niamh O'Connor:
Inflows to southern Europe in particular are increasing heavily, in particular to Spain Portugal and Italy. Some of that is based on the fact that the Spanish and Portuguese markets have high international rates of inbound students from Brazil to Portugal because of language, and from other South American countries to Spain.
I do not want to misrepresent it as all based on different types of attraction, but more nascent markets have that opportunity.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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If they are investing there is a return, so I am curious to know how affordability for students is being dealt with. Is it the case that the State is subsidising through more grants?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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We need to get that information, if we are to encourage private investment. While I recognise the need for more public investment, I agree with the Chair that it has to be a combination of both. In some respects, you can ask why an investor would go into student accommodation when it is a shorter year and you have to generate other income during the summer months. It is probably hassle you do not need as an investor, particularly when there is such a strong return in regular rented accommodation. Are the witnesses finding there is competition for investment between long-term rented accommodation and student accommodation?
Mr. Ciarán McIntyre:
No. Ireland is unique in that regard. As we said earlier, it is Dublin, Galway and Cork. Ireland is unique in that we have a strong tourism industry and we do not have enough tourist beds to meet that. For the ten weeks when students are out, the schemes can be let out as aparthotel-type offerings, which are cheaper than hotels but are at a very high standard.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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How is the management of that seen?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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You are doing laundry and all of that.
Mr. Ciarán McIntyre:
Yes, but because the sector in Ireland has been doing it for a number of years, we are used to it. In other jurisdictions they do not do it. It is less in the UK, but the UK does a lot of 51-week leases to students. Ireland is unique in that regard. We are lucky that we have such a buoyant tourism market in that it feeds back to things being viable in Dublin, Cork and Galway, but unfortunately not for the regions.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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It is viable in terms of student rental income and the shorter term summer rental income.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Okay. At the same time, the witnesses are making the argument that it is not viable enough to attract investment at present.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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They are not being activated.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I will turn to the students. It is my view that it has to be a combination. It is the only way we will achieve the number of beds required. I hear what the witnesses said about digs and the need for further protections to be put in place. That is something I would support. Some students are quite happy in digs. It creates an environment that suits them. Not everybody wants to be part of a larger block of students. They might want a quiet space and so on. One of the direct supports the Government can provide is through the SUSI grant. Neither of the witnesses has made the point about needing to look at them, but I presume they would support an upward review on the SUSI grant.
Mr. Bryan O'Mahony:
From our position, we are constantly calling for it. I sat at an Oireachtas committee meeting about student financing and SUSI not too long ago. We made that recommendation. We have said for years that SUSI needs reform. We have been saying for years that students with estrangements are the ones who fall through the gaps. They may have no financial or other ties to their families because estrangement comes in different forms. So many students call us about how they can get SUSI. They do not talk to their parents. They do not have a Tusla letter or a court order that says they are separated from their family. How do they get SUSI or into accommodation? We are constantly advocating for total SUSI reform, and that SUSI and SUSI maintenance rates are reflective of current market rates.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I assumed as much. He just did not say it tonight or if he did I missed it. Mr. Lenihan wants to add to that.
Mr. Dara Lenihan:
I will be careful about the way I speak, so I will speak slowly. I dealt with a high-profile case in our own university where a student had to fight tooth and nail. It was not until that student got into second year that they were able to get their SUSI grant because of the lack of a Tusla letter. It was really difficult for this student. They were living with a partner and luckily that was a great situation. However, if it had not been, that student could easily have been on the street, which was not ideal. When I say it was a high-profile case it was in the news. It should have been simple for them to say what their situation was, what they had dealt with and that they needed SUSI to complete college or even be there in the first place. The student thought it would be easier considering that fact but having to fight tooth and nail for almost two years to get to that point was very difficult.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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The SUSI application system does not reflect the circumstances students can find themselves in with regard to family estrangement and more extreme cases involving Tusla. It needs urgent reform in that sense.
Mr. Bryan O'Mahony:
Cases are not always black and white. It is not always about income and your circumstances on paper. There has to be a human element able to address situations. If you are over 18 and estranged from your family, you will have no documentation to support that. There has to be a human element so a situation can be explained. It cannot always be black and white. If it is meant to be a support system, let us make it a human support system.
Donna McGettigan (Clare, Sinn Fein)
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Something came up earlier with regard to rents. The RTB has said that if service charges are included in the rent, then they cannot be taken out and made separate. However, if new rents come in then service charges can be separate. We could have a situation where the rents may be low but the service charges may not. That came up earlier in our conversation with the RTB. That could be an issue that needs to be looked into. Services should be included in the rent so we cannot have that situation.
I have dealt with many cases when it comes to SUSI. As has been said, it needs that human element. You are talking to a computer and the computer says no. It is not that simple. I have dealt with many heartbreaking cases where people have given up and gone away, all for the sake of a couple of hundred euro of SUSI. That is shocking because it affects the rest of their life. I totally agree with SUSI reform. It needs to happen quickly and it needs that human touch.
Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I am still struggling to understand how the witnesses are going to address what they described as the viability gap. They mentioned what I think is the truth, which is if they do not find these other mechanisms, as they describe them, then it is going to be rents. Of course, that is what has happened. Insofar as there has been private investment in student accommodation it comes at the expense of rents that are unaffordable to huge numbers of students, who are precisely the students who need the accommodation. I am genuinely struggling to understand what these other mechanisms could possibly be. unless the quality of the housing is reduced. I do not know if the witnesses have figures on average unit costs for purpose-built student accommodation to give some sense of that. I cannot see the costs of being reduced in any significant way. They are not going to drive down the cost of labour at the moment. I am not sure there are other mechanisms, other than the State stepping in and essentially making sure developers make a profit.
Why is the State not just doing it itself if the State has to make it viable for the private investor? Tell me if I am wrong, because I am just struggling to understand. When asked about international models, Ms O'Connor responded that Summix would have a look at it. It is happening in Portugal or Spain but I can think of very obvious reasons certain things would be cheaper there. I think there are fairly obvious reasons.
Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Elaborate, please.
Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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But Ms O'Connor cannot say whether it is affordable or-----
Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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There has been capital coming in here as well, has there not? There was a rash of capital at one point.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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There was but it is gone. It is not coming now; that is the problem.
Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Yes, but whether it was of any benefit is seriously questionable to me, because the stuff that they were building when the capital was coming in was €1,200 to €1,400 a month. That is not going to solve the problem of the students whom we are trying to find accommodation for. That is my point. Even if we had a certain investment of that sort, it was not delivering affordable student accommodation. Anecdotally, the students and others would say that it was rich people from Saudi Arabia who were able to afford it. This is not really who our student accommodation policy is directed at.
Mr. Ciarán McIntyre:
It is part of the solution, is it not? The private sector will cater to the segment of the students who have the ability to afford it and there will be other means of delivery for students who cannot afford it. Accommodation is very expensive. I do not think anybody is saying it is not. It is not all made up of Saudi Arabian students or international students, although international students are an important element that underpins our universities, our research and development and, in fact, revenue to our universities. If we go back to the regions, the regional universities now are getting so-called marquee courses. Veterinary is going to Letterkenny and pharmacy is going to Sligo. I am told anecdotally, from chatting to those in the colleges, that they cannot accept international students because they do not have any accommodation. To keep the prices for our own domestic students down so that the university has an income stream, the international students help with that. We would not see it as a binary black and white. It is a bit more nuanced than it just being for international students. Of course there is an element of that but they contribute, a bit like FDI contributes to our economy, and we have relied massively on that to grow to where we are. International students are similar and arguably even more so because they bring a cultural element and a cultural affinity to our country when they go back to their home nations. That is a little bit outside my remit but that is my opinion.
Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Sure. Do not get me wrong, I am for people coming here and studying from anywhere and everywhere in the world. I am not for them paying extortionate rents and extortionate fees, and I think that would be the position of AMLÉ as well.
Mr. Ciarán McIntyre:
Can I just add that for a lot of those international students, their home governments pay for their accommodation. They actually get a grant from their home government to cover all or a portion of it. Not all of them get this but a significant portion of them do. In fact, student numbers from international markets drop off if the grants are curtailed for them. It is a facet that their own home governments will give them grants for the accommodation.
Ms Niamh O'Connor:
Ultimately, purpose-built student accommodation is not a subsidised product. We have seen elsewhere in the residential market that Croí Cónaithe, for example, and other interventions have come in. I am not stating that should come in for purpose built student accommodation but build cost inflation has rendered these schemes unviable. They did stack up on paper but it has taken excessive amounts of time to get them through the planning process. During that time lag the build cost inflation is such that it is a different situation. I do not know is it that we go up and we allow more height and more density. If we were able to get more density on these schemes, it would then stack up. Unfortunately, in the private sector and the role we play, we have to deliver a return. It has to stack up on paper before we can proceed. It is not necessarily personal that this is something that Mr. McIntyre and I are insisting on. It is just the way that the private market works.
Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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We will have to agree to disagree. The Irish banks have hundreds of billions of euro that could easily be used to build houses here. We do not need to go for foreign investors who want their pound and flesh. That would be my view, but I understand and respect where Ms O'Connor is coming from.
Maybe something we might agree on though is if we reduced the financial burdens on students, and maybe the students would say something about this, it might put everyone in a better position, like getting rid of fees for students and reducing transport costs.
Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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Would Mr. O'Mahony agree with that?
Mr. Bryan O'Mahony:
The viewpoint of my organisation has always been that higher education is a public good. It is an investment in the future of our country and in a skilled workforce. Trying to treat it as a market that is putting people to the stress of paying €1,200 in rent makes it sound like they are paying for a degree at the end of it. It sounds like they are paying to walk away with a piece of paper rather than higher education being what it is truly meant to be, which is a place of exchanging of ideas and debates and the exchange of knowledge, rather than rote learning in order to pay for a degree so people can try to build a future from there.
Mr. Dara Lenihan:
To add to that, things like fee drops and anything to do with public transport are always helpful. I know that by a technicality our fees decreased more recently, but for the students who were paying for them, it went up. It was a difficult sort of conversation to continually have. Another thing that is far less spoken about that we are currently dealing with are Leap card issues. I think Fort Knox is easier to break into than it is to get a Leap card at the moment. Students are finding it really difficult. They keep getting "No" responses. I understand and I can appreciate the fact that they are trying to make sure that people who need it get it. Students are being asked to send their timetable, and are being asked when they will be off for Easter and if they are sure they will be off for that amount of time. These sorts of really in-depth questions just make those sort of things harder, so they are waiting those first few weeks of college before they are actually ever getting their Leap card and then they have already spent a big bunch of money on transportation that they have been trying to save over the summer. I have had a lot of students tell me that they will not be in college on Mondays because they can only afford to go on Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and asking to meet on those days instead. It can be quite difficult to reason that in your head, so Leap cards are an issue.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Get them to post them to the local post office. The postmaster can do the applications. There would be a friendly face and it might get sorted out quicker. There has been very good engagement this evening. Deputy McGettigan wants to come back in again.
Donna McGettigan (Clare, Sinn Fein)
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Mr. McIntyre spoke about private students who can afford it. That is very concerning because investment should be in all students, not just those who can afford it.
Donna McGettigan (Clare, Sinn Fein)
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I know but it was kind of implied. International students are really being used as cash cows. They are propping up the underfunded universities and institutions here. That is what they are being used for and that is what they are being told.
All these little things add up. There should be investment for all, no matter who they are. I come from a family of six; my mother brought us up on her own. I could not afford to go to college. I understand. I saw my mates going to college because they could afford it. It is the wrong way to look at society.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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For clarity, I do not think that is what Mr. McIntyre meant at all. We have had a very interesting and open discussion. I look forward to getting the information on international best practice. To Mr. O'Mahony and Mr. Lenihan with regard to digs legislation, as we said, we had a very good discussion on it here a number of weeks ago. It has moved further than it had in a number of years. There is good cross-party support in the context of moving it forward. We will all do that together.
I visit at TUS regularly. I look forward to seeing progress with Professor Cunnane, who has done a huge amount of work since TUS was set up by bringing Limerick and Athlone together. It is massive for people in the he midlands that we have access to an array of university courses and degrees in our local area rather than having to travel to Dublin or Galway, where rents are probably more expensive.
I thank everyone. I am sure we will have another discussion on this at some stage over the next 12 months. That is what this committee is here to do. It is to look at ways and try to probe matters and to push for the changes that need to be made. It is not a talking shop. We want to highlight issues and work with everybody. That is the only way we will do it. There is a need for the public and private elements in order to develop accommodation and housing. We need investment coming into the country. The State does not have the money to fund it completely. There is a need for public-private partnerships. That has worked with our projects relating to the road network, etc., over the years. It can also work when it comes to student accommodation. That concludes proceedings.