Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas leis an gCathaoirleach Gníomhach, Deputy Mattie McGrath, as ucht a bheith sa Chathaoir. Fáiltím roimh an mBille seo agus an obair atá curtha isteach ag na Teachtaí Dála Mairéad Farrell agus Eoin Ó Broin. Tá siad ag díriú an spotsolais ar ghné den earnáil tithíochta seo. Is gné amháin é. I welcome the opportunity to speak on this legislation and thank Deputy Farrell and her colleague Deputy Ó Broin for introducing it. It is very short, amounting to 16 pages, and it puts the focus on one aspect of the housing crisis, namely the inadequacy generally for everybody, including students.

I come from Galway city and welcome the delegations from the universities, including those in Galway. I am acutely aware of the housing crisis, the astronomical figures charged for rent and the unavailability of accommodation. Tomorrow, I will be raising the fact that people who have got refugee status and those who have permission to stay face eviction on 5 July. We are all in receipt of representations about that. Those affected have been told to seek accommodation in Galway city, where there is absolutely none. It is important to grasp, with respect to the HAP scheme, that the people concerned are being told to go on the housing waiting list. Without exaggeration, people have been waiting for 20 years. Then they are told to access a HAP property, but there are no properties available under the HAP scheme, on the basis of discretionary rates or otherwise. We know that from the quarterly reports from the Simon Community.

We have two wonderful universities in Galway and we are about to get a campus for post-leaving certificate students. This represents a very welcome addition to Galway but there is a massive housing crisis. I welcome the fact that the Bill puts an emphasis on very basic matters but I wish to return to some of the general difficulties. The Bill seeks reasonable access to a kitchen, bathroom and garden, permission to lock a bedroom and notice periods, all of which are absolutely basic. Regarding the reference to using the Residential Tenancies Board, I have a little difficulty, but that can be worked out. The board relates to tenant–landlord disputes but this is not a matter of a landlord–tenant situation; it is a question of where an owner of a house opens it up, although there should be protections for both sides, including students. That is what the Bill seeks. However, it is not a landlord– tenants situation but one of licensors and licensees. I am not using these words just to be difficult, but the situation is completely different.

The rent-a-room scheme has been in place since 2021, or for 23 years. In theory, it was wonderful in that, for the first time, somebody could rent out a room in a house for additional income that would not be taxed. I believed it was a wonderful concept because it emphasised ordinary people. Belatedly, we allowed those in local authority houses to participate in the scheme. It was wonderful that the tenant of a local authority could access extra income that would not be taxed. I understand the scheme is to be extended to houses of voluntary housing bodies. I welcome all this but it was never intended to sort out the housing crisis; it was an additional measure that allowed people to earn an extra few cent. In my experience, this was the first time that ordinary people benefited.

Now we are in circumstances in which students, because of the crisis, must rely increasingly on the rent-a-room scheme. Crazy prices are being sought under it and there are stories and anecdotes from both sides. This problem has always arisen because successive Governments, including the current one, have made housing a product to be bought and sold on the open market. It has also done so with student accommodation as well. I am referring to all the horrible things done by those people who are involved in order to make a profit, including restricting the number of months in the year in which one can rent the accommodation and telling students to get out. While it is welcome that we are considering this aspect, we must realise at some stage that the housing crisis did not happen overnight or by accident; it happened because of Government policy, repeated over and over. When the seven presidents of the seven universities – the seven male presidents – appeared before members of the Committee of Public Accounts, they had absolutely no insight into what they had done under their leadership. It has changed since. We have more universities and some female representation, but the individuals concerned were pushing universities as businesses and seeking to get as much money as possible for certain subjects and not others, all the time pushing away the problem of student accommodation. I do not see students as a problem. They were always an integral part of the city in Galway. However, the problem of housing for them was shoved on to the city of Galway, as in other cities. The University of Galway had €64 million in a foundation. I do not know the value now because I do not sit on the Committee of Public Accounts. The foundation involved Goldman Sachs and Coca-Cola and a board in Galway and a board in New York. There was much building under that foundation but no student accommodation. All the time, Government policies were pushing bigger and bigger companies to produce student accommodation on a massive-profit basis, and that has not changed.

I tabled a series of questions repeatedly for the Minister of State’s predecessor, who is now the Taoiseach, questioning the basis on which we were helping companies to build student accommodation. It all seems to be on a private basis, a lease basis, involving giving the maximum amount of public money to companies, which are getting bigger and bigger, to build student accommodation wherever they see fit, not based on nearness to the college, and on the basis of profit and leasing back. I would have believed that if we learned anything from the housing crisis, the Covid pandemic and the transformation and change needed after Covid, it was that universities should all build accommodation that they own so as to have control over the rent and charge reasonable rent. It might be difficult for the Minister of State to listen to this but it is very difficult to listen to it over and over in Galway, where people who come to my office, including students, have no place to go, where people with residency status are being told to seek a house although there is none, as I cannot mention often enough, and where the rent for two- and three-bedroom houses is anything from €1,500 to €2,500 or €3,000. It is absolutely rotten and unacceptable and it is a scandal.

I visited a certain department in the new university in Galway last week or two weeks ago and was very impressed with the potential there. However, when I asked about student accommodation, I learned there was no plan for student accommodation on site. The Corrib Great Southern, with whose demolition order Deputy Farrell will be very familiar, should have been acquired by GMIT, as it was called back in my time. It represented one possible way to solve part of the housing crisis in Galway. The hotel was right beside GMIT but it was sold off and sold again at very low prices. The State should have acquired it, given its location right beside GMIT. Now it has been demolished and we are waiting for the owners to put something on the site. It was a standing hotel that remained empty for years.

The exact same thing occurred at what I still call the university in Galway.

We are in trouble for not using the right name. We zone in on little issues like names and ignore the blatant problem created by successive Governments so that the free market thrives, and when the market does not thrive, the Government will support it every way it can.

I welcome that the Government will not oppose the Bill and will examine it. There are some difficulties in terms of working out the concepts but we need the owners of the houses and the students to be protected. I am open to how we do that being debated on Committee Stage.

The bigger problem of the housing crisis can never be solved in the manner the Government is pursuing because the Government is embedded in and married to the market and does not see the need for transformative action with student accommodation on public land.

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