Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

I also congratulate the USI for pushing on this issue and forcing the Government to accept that there will have to be change as part of its broader Education for All campaign, which is a vital campaign to remove barriers to access education.

We are talking about students who are renting accommodation, many of whom have been forced every year to pay up to an entire term's worth of rent in advance. Some students have been hit with a bill of €9,000, in UCD for example, before they even buy a book. Then, with lockdown last year, many of those students have been completely unable to make use of their accommodation. They ask for a refund and their landlord tells them take a hike. This is a rip-off of students and their families, pure and simple.

We need to pass this Bill and progress it is as rapidly as possible through Committee Stage, without any messing around by the Government, to protect the interests of students. One month's rent in advance should be more than enough.

This Bill would also provide those who have been ripped off with a chance to get the refunds they so desperately need. It is a real issue right across the country, including for students in the Tallaght campus of Technological University, TU, Dublin. They are straightforward reforms to give renters a break and stand up to the corporate landlords who dominate so much of the student accommodation sector.

We need to fundamentally transform third level education in this country to remove all these barriers, including the astronomically high costs of accommodation, to provide genuinely free education. We need to scrap all forms of fees and provide a proper living grant for all students to cover the cost of education and make it accessible for all. It also needs to be linked into a general campaign to transform rental conditions, that is, proper rent controls and investment in quality public housing and genuinely affordable housing.

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