Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

One of the depressing things about the instance of cronyism involving the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Coveney, is that it deflects attention at the beginning of the Dáil term from the issues that people expect us to be dealing with and the crises that they expect us to resolve. One of those issues will be highlighted at 5.30 p.m. this evening by the National Homeless and Housing Coalition. They will gather in a demonstration to appeal to this Government to break from the failed policies it has applied; to address the housing crisis; and to actually deliver the public and affordable housing, the affordable rents and the answers to the homelessness crisis that people are demanding. At that protest, there will be many groups who are affected by the ten years of failure by both Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael in government to address the housing crisis; those affected by the mica issue; renters who are paying extortionate rents; working people who have no chance of getting on the housing ladder because of unaffordable prices; those waiting a decade and sometimes two decades on housing lists; people who are actually homeless; and many others.

One group I particularly want to highlight in these few weeks is those affected by the student accommodation crisis. It is absolutely dire. We are facing an unprecedented crisis of availability of affordable student accommodation. The student unions in Dublin, Galway, Limerick, Sligo and many other places are now overwhelmed with thousands of students who cannot find affordable accommodation. The disease of unaffordable rents that has contributed so much to the housing crisis in wider society is now infecting our student population and, indeed, our on-campus accommodation. It is completely pricing students out of the market of affordable student accommodation. The consequences are record levels of homelessness among students who are sleeping on couches or in friends’ homes and so on; being forced into hotels where they have to pay up to €400 per week for accommodation; or simply, being unable to find accommodation and having to commute two, three and sometimes four hours back and forward a day because they cannot get accommodation near their college.

Why is this happening? I put it to the Taoiseach that it is because of the failures of Government policy that now replicate themselves in the student accommodation issue. In UCD, which is a publicly funded college, they have increased student accommodation costs by 20% to 30%. In the newly constructed student accommodation, they are charging up to €15,000 per year for accommodation.

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