Peter Fitzpatrick (Louth, Independent)
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98. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the plans in place with the shortage of student accommodation on and off campus to help students with the high costs; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [58616/21]

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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100. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the steps he is taking to create a situation in which universities are able to provide on-campus accommodation at affordable rates; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [58643/21]

Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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102. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the measures he will put in place to alleviate immediately the pressures that students are under in view of the chronic shortage of student accommodation which has resulted in students living in hotels, couch surfing and travelling long distances to attend lectures; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [58587/21]

Joe Flaherty (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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132. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the details of his strategy to increase the supply and affordability of student accommodation; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [58633/21]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 89, 98, 100, 102 and 132 together.

I thank the Deputy for the question on housing and student accommodation. The first thing this Government must and will do is to be honest that we need a new and better model for student accommodation. Yes, we have seen the supply - and I can ream off statistics - of purpose-built private student accommodation significantly increase, but that is not the point. We have not seen a pipeline of significant scale of college-owned affordable accommodation.

I have engaged directly in the Deputy's own county, with University College Cork and Munster Technological University. I have engaged with the Irish Universities Association, IUA, the Technological Higher Education Association, THEA, the representative bodies, and the Union of Students in Ireland, USI. Crucially, I have also engaged with the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage on the issue. We have established a working group, chaired by my Department, working with housing and university and college stakeholders to try to devise a new model to build college-owned affordable student accommodation. I hope to be in a position to outline that model early in 2022. We have asked the universities and the institutes of technology to prepare a pipeline of projects on the understanding that a new model that will address some of their concerns is forthcoming.

As I indicated earlier, if at all possible, we should look at some of the cost-rental models the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage is bringing forward, and see if there could be a tailor-made or a version of that that would work for the third level sector. I am very happy to hear the Deputy's feedback. I should also say that tomorrow I will meet with student union presidents from across the country online - all of them are invited - to talk about the issue of student accommodation and get their feedback and views, too.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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First, we are looking at all options across the range. All colleges need to see the provision of accommodation as a core component of what they need to do, because otherwise, a lack of it will become an issue in terms of participation in education. In fairness to them, institutes of technology and technological universities, until the publication of Housing for All in recent weeks, were not allowed or enabled to borrow to build accommodation. In the Deputy's own neck of the woods, I think there is huge potential for the technological universities, for example, Munster Technological University in Kerry and Cork, to name just two in the south-west region. There will be focus on all institutions, but a particular focus will be placed on the former institutes of technology and new technological universities. There could be some potential low-hanging fruit there if we can get the model right.

On private operators, I do not believe, from memory, that I have directly engaged with them, but I certainly will. On the rent a room scheme, more can be done in that regard in terms of a short-term fix or assistance. I think the Covid pandemic impacted that. I am already engaging with student unions and others about how we can look at rebooting that or perhaps even remodelling it for the next academic year.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The short answer is "Yes". We came together on an Oireachtas cross-party basis on legislation passed by the Minister of Housing, Local Government and Heritage to ban that practice, so that no renter, student or otherwise, can now be asked to pay more than one month's rent plus a deposit. It was a huge issue that USI and others were highlighting last year. Students were wrongly being asked to pay, four, five or six months' rent in one go. I am pleased to say that we have made legislative provision to outlaw that. No more than one month's rent and one month's deposit will be required now.