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

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Deputies will know that last year, during the second lockdown, many universities moved to remote learning and, as a consequence, students who had prepaid for student accommodation or were in student accommodation in or near campus had to vacate their licences early. As students do not have the same protections under the Residential Tenancies Act as other renters when it comes to exiting licence agreements early, many students and their families were significantly out of pocket. There is a widespread practice of students being required to pay rent for three, six and in some cases the full nine months in advance of taking up their student accommodation. That meant thousands of families across the State lost substantial sums of money because there was no requirement for student landlords to repay those moneys.

Many of these families had been hit very hard by Covid. Some were on the pandemic unemployment payment, PUP, or the wage subsidy scheme and were, therefore, experiencing hardship. The loss of €3,000, €6,000 or €9,000 was a great financial blow for the families in question. If these had been standard private rented tenancies, the tenants could have given a 28-day notice. They would have forgone the first four weeks' rent but they would have been refunded any rent paid beyond that period.

At the time, the Union of Students in Ireland, USI, rightly complained students were not being given fair play. The USI contacted both the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage and Opposition housing spokespersons urging us to change the law to give students the protections they so rightly deserve. I am aware the Minister met the USI and he has always engaged constructively with it on these and related matters. I and other Opposition politicians did likewise. Those engagements on the Opposition side led to the Bill before us today. It is a USI Bill; it was designed and led by the USI. The Bill has the support of 56 Opposition Deputies who have co-signed it. I believe others who have not signed it will also support it.

The Office of Parliamentary Legal Advisers provided considerable assistance on the Bill and we thank OPLA staff for their work on it. The Bill does three very simple things, two of which are Covid-19 related protections and one is a permanent change to the protections for students. First, if a student in student accommodation is forced to leave that accommodation early because of future Covid-19 restrictions, he or she would be able, as all other tenants are, to give a 28-day notice and get refunded for any additional rent paid in advance beyond that notice period. Likewise, if a student is not able to take up pre-booked accommodation due to Covid-19 restrictions, he or she will be able to issue a 28-day notice to exit that licence early and be fully refunded for any additional rent paid in advance beyond the notice period. These are fair and eminently sensible changes. Landlords would have 28 days' rent covered and any rent paid beyond that would be fully refunded.

The permanent change proposed in the Bill is that the practice of pre-charging students for three, six or nine months be ended. It is simply an unfair burden. This is particularly true in respect of working families in many parts of Ireland who are sending their sons and daughters to universities in the cities and towns and must come up with such large amounts of cash when, in general, regular renters pay a deposit of one month's rent as well as one month's rent in advance.

The core message of the Bill is that we should give students fair play. Let us ensure student renters are given exactly the same protections as all others. Where landlords are served with an early notice of termination, they will, under this Bill, get four weeks' rent. If that is good enough in the private rented sector generally, it should be good enough for student landlords. Equally, the Bill provides that students will get fair play and be refunded any rent paid beyond four weeks. Crucially, once we get to the other side of Covid, the practice of requiring the prepayment of thousands of euro by hard-pressed working families will come to an end.

This is a reasonable and sensible Bill. I urge the Minister, as he did previously when he worked, while in opposition, to protect students, to work with the current Opposition and pass the USI's Bill in order to ensure fair play for students.

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