James Bannon (Fine Gael)

I move amendment No. 7:

In page 95, between lines 9 and 10, to insert the following:

"(e) the monitoring of any discrimination against tenants or any other discriminatory actions in the private rented sector,".

The purpose of the amendment is to ensure the board will monitor discrimination faced by those seeking or retaining accommodation. Students, for example, are often refused accommodation at certain times of the year. There have been instances where landlords have stipulated that students are not welcome to apply for tenancy in their accommodation. There should be no discrimination against anybody who is prepared to pay.

Amendment No. 8 proposes that a function of the private residential tenancies board should be to monitor the quality and pricing of accommodation in the private rented sector. This is important as the price of accommodation rockets at certain times of the year. Unscrupulous landlords often raise rents when they know that students from rural areas will be moving to Dublin to seek accommodation. A student who has left it late to seek accommodation, perhaps because he or she has received a late third level offer, is desperate and may pay more than he or she can afford because there is no time to wait for more affordable alternative accommodation. City accommodation for students in Ireland is more expensive than that available in other European countries and in the United States. Students are being priced out of the market and it is their parents who are forced to fund their accommodation. People who work in agriculture and public enterprise, in particular, do not enjoy the same healthy circumstances they did during the Celtic tiger years and the necessity to provide for their student children's accommodation requirements is a significant burden to bear.

No young person must be denied the right to attain a third level education but the cost of rented accommodation in urban areas limits the choice to students. Third level educational facilities have not been decentralised to a great extent in that most of our third level institutions are located in large cities.