Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome this debate tonight on the Residential Tenancies (Student Rents, Rights and Protections) Bill 2018 which reflects Fianna Fáil’s policy on this often overlooked part of our widespread housing crisis involving student accommodation. I am conscious there are students tonight in Wicklow and elsewhere busy finalising their preparations for the leaving certificate examinations. The leaving certificate is the completion of many years of hard work for many to ensure the prospect of third level college will be the next phase of their lives. I wish all the students and their parents the best of luck in the coming weeks. I urge them to take time to enjoy the fine weather and to relax whenever it is possible during this period.

The joy that many students and parents will experience when the results come out in August will, unfortunately, be quickly replaced by the reappearance of stress when the race to find student accommodation begins. Every year in Wicklow this frantic and unfair race takes place at a time which should be filled with happiness and satisfaction as parents and students take the pleasure in the transition from second to third level education. Instead, it is a frantic and sometimes fruitless search for safe, affordable and available accommodation. Many students in Wicklow have been forced to become commuters before they even start a career as the lack of student accommodation in Dublin, Carlow, Waterford and elsewhere forces them to stay at home. There must be a better way to address this. Apart from increasing supply, which is an ongoing process, there must be measures to curb the unjustified rent increases which are currently up to 27% in some Dublin third level colleges.

It is astonishing for high-minded liberal centres of high learning to be so ruthless in taking advantage of students. I have seen excellent expertise-based evidence generated for policy proposals from many academics at the housing committee and at Fianna Fáil policy meetings. They are ashamed at the management practices within some third level institutions. They believe the accommodation crisis is being cynically exploited to extract more cash from students and their families. In St. Patrick's College, Drumcondra, student accommodation was raised by 43% from €3,200 to €4,572 in 2016. The State and the Government funds third level colleges through fees and the Higher Education Authority and is, therefore, a passive partner in what is a totally unjust regime. It is sometimes difficult to listen to Ministers speak of how they are solving the student accommodation crisis when in fact they are allowing third level colleges to exploit students and their families.

The Fianna Fáil Bill mirrors this Bill. It would expand rent pressures zones to student accommodation units. This would prevent and slow down the rack-renting that is occurring with the connivance of third level management. Students and their families have enough pressures to cope with. The financial strain caused by the vast increase in student accommodation rents is contributing further to the difficulties in access for families with lower incomes.

Access to third level education for all in Ireland rather than only the select few is a core principle of Fianna Fáil republican thinking. I hope the Government wakes up to the needs of students. After all, I know of too many Wicklow students who have to get up early in the morning to travel a long distance to college.

We must ensure that the quality of student accommodation is maintained at a high level and that the outside of college term the controls are removed to allow other legitimate activities.

I wish to make another remark in a personal capacity. I am aware of many Bills that are similar, including, in some instances, Bills with Government support. Given the spirit of new politics and a fragmented Dáil with a minority Government, I hope that it will be possible to see if parties could agree on delivering those Bills with broad approval. I welcome tonight's consensus among Fianna Fáil, Sinn Féin and the Minister of State. After all, legislation should not be about claiming credit, but rather serving the citizens of Ireland.

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