Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Opposition parties that outlined their support for the Bill. I also thank the Government for its support of the spirit of the Bill and its statement that rent predictability is in line with Government policy.

I do not accept that this is a complex issue. Either one believes students should live with 20% to 30% rent increases or one does not. If one does not, then a range of legislative measures are available for application to student accommodation. The question then is on the best wording, to which I will revert.

It is remarkable that the Government still does not know whether the Residential Tenancies Acts apply to student licences. It is three months since this issue first hit the headlines, and I cannot believe it would take the Attorney General that time to clarify this from the Government's point of view. If and when he does clarify it, it would be good if the Government shared that clarification with us.

As to unintended consequences, students withdrawing from courses is an unintended consequence. Students being forced into long commutes, negatively affecting their education, is another unintended consequence. Surely this should come before everything else.

I have no idea what the Minister of State, Deputy Mitchell O'Connor, meant when referring to the constitutional rights of landlords. That matter has been dealt with in the RPZ legislation. Otherwise, that legislation would have been unconstitutional. Limited and all as that protection is, we would like it applied in this circumstance.

I always get nervous when people say "Proceed with caution" because it really means "Do nothing" or "Do nothing within an appropriate period". Maybe what the Government is really saying is that it is nervous that any restriction on the ability of these institutional landlords to increase rents would impact on investment. Today, I referred to an increase in private sector investment. If that increases affordable supply, it is a good thing, but the companies involved in the market are not just domestic. They are global players with specific business models and resources. They can make sufficient profits without having to screw students and their families. As such, the idea that we need a comprehensive review of the student accommodation sector misses the point.

If the central objection is to the poor wording of the Bill, I have no difficulty with that. This is not about whose name is on the Bill.

10 o’clock

I would be happy if, after proceeding with this Bill today, we were to throw it in the bin and ask the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, his Minister of State and his very able staff, with David Walsh and his team, to come up with better wording and to drop that into the residential tenancies (amendment) Bill that is coming before committee in a number of weeks. We already have given a commitment that we would progress that Bill because it contains other good elements. I fully agree with Deputy Darragh O’Brien. If, when that Bill is published, this issue is not dealt with, we will sit down as Opposition and will invite all others to craft an amendment that will have majority support in the committee and the House to insert it there. The choice coming out of here today for the Minister of State, Deputy English, is simple. It is either to draft his own wording for this so he does not have to complain that we are not doing it well, or face our amendment. It is one or the other because students simply do not have the time for a comprehensive review before this is addressed.

I accept that everybody who has spoken today accepts there is a problem. Everybody is saying that something needs to be done. Deputy Boyd Barrett is absolutely right. What we are proposing here is not radical. This is the most modest measure possible to prevent exorbitant hikes in the future. The most effective way to deliver good quality, affordable student accommodation is to seriously look at increasing lending or removing the lending caps on the universities to allow them to directly supply good quality, affordable student accommodation on their land or on land near to them provided by the State. That would cut out a significant amount of the additional profit and charges that come with the private sector delivery. It is not that I am against the private sector delivery. It delivers affordability but my preferred option and indeed the preferred option of many universities is to have greater access to funding, be that from the Housing Finance Agency, the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund or the European Investment Bank to deliver the best quality affordable accommodation for students. The “Drivetime” radio programme broadcast a powerful interview by a young student from an affected university. Her family is now facing the reality of having to fund two students in two different universities who are unable to access any kind of accommodation at all, let alone anything affordable. In the first instance, let us tackle the student rent shakedown. Let us prevent landlords from jacking up rents by 20% to 30% and let us ensure that where universities want to borrow low-cost, long-term finance to build good quality student accommodation on university or public land, they are given every support by the Government to do so. I commend the Bill to the House.

See this speech in context