Maureen O'Sullivan (Dublin Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

We discussed before the difficulties that a preponderance of student accommodation brings into an area and a community and the need to address that. On-campus accommodation is excellent because there are ways for the community to engage; with the private sector there is not. This is why the suggestion had been made of some kind of regulator of student accommodation, perhaps combining it with hostel accommodation. The Minister of State still has not answered my question on the fact that student accommodation is vacant for at least four months of the year in most cases, whereas if some of these student accommodation units had been given to the housing list, particularly for single men and single women, I think that would have worked and would have made a big difference to housing lists. It is a question of that period of four months and what will happen to that accommodation. It could be left idle, but I doubt it because there is too big of a profit-making opportunity there.

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