Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

As the Tánaiste knows, we have a student accommodation crisis and the SUSI grant has not been increased. I want to raise a very specific issue relating to the crisis. In Dublin, developers of luxury student apartments are now trying to change their planning permission so they can be used as hotels for tourists. This was predicted by my colleague, our spokesperson on housing, Senator Rebecca Moynihan, back in 2018. We brought forward a Bill, the Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2021, to deal with this issue. The Government needs to find holistic solutions to this issue over the coming years. Will it work with our Bill to ensure that speculators cannot use the planning system to change purpose-built student accommodation into apartments for tourists?

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