Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I support this Bill to give students in student specific accommodation under licence the full protections of the Residential Tenancies Act 2004, including access to the Residential Tenancies Board and inclusion in the rent pressure zones. I thank Sinn Féin for bringing it forward.

I understand that it is an extremely expensive time for parents of college students. We need to look at ways to ease the burden for parents. I am aware that many parents would place more than one security deposit on student accommodation over the summer months ahead of the announcement of college places in order to secure accommodation for their child. This is grossly unfair to parents as until college places are offered, they cannot say with certainty what accommodation their child will need. These parents end up losing a substantial amount of money in these security deposits. Landlords of these student lettings are not left out of pocket. As we all know, there is such a high demand for student accommodation that once a parent withdraws his or her interest from the accommodation the place will be filled immediately. We need to put in laws on protection of security deposits in student accommodation prior to college places being announced. No parent should have to fork out multiple deposits in order to secure college accommodation for their child. I recognise that the Student University Support Ireland, SUSI, grant system was introduced in 2012 and is a welcome support for parents and students but in the past there has been a delay in the time it takes for grant applications to be processed, thereby leading to a delay in payments which puts parents under major financial difficulty. While I welcome the improvements which have been introduced by SUSI in 2016 to 2017, including an earlier application opening date, I still urge the Minister to ensure that grant applications are processed and payments are made on time for this year.

As students rents have become so expensive and the availability unsuitable, more students have taken to commuting to college by means such as a public bus service. I have heard first hand from my constituents who use the public bus service that it can cost them approximately €66.50 for a five day student travel pass. This is a huge cost for parents and students.

We recognise that we have a housing crisis in the country and a lack of adequate student accommodation. If more students were given the option to commute from their home towns to college this would take pressure off the current lack of student accommodation but these students need to be provided with a cost efficient bus service with suitable routes, coinciding with their college start and finish times.

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