Michelle Mulherin (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I wish to raise my concern about a serious problem affecting third level students from Mayo attending college in Galway city, particularly arising out of the rent hikes taking place on student accommodation. The issue of Cúirt na Coiribe and the €1,000 increase in the rent has been highlighted, but this is an issue that affects many students, not just those who want to live in Cúirt na Coiribe. It is hard for students to get accommodation. In cases in which they can secure private rented accommodation, they are being asked to sign 12-month leases, not nine-month leases. This is a big financial imposition on families and it is families and students who have contacted me. Many people from Mayo attend college in Galway, in both Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology, GMIT, and the National University of Ireland Galway, NUIG, and many of them are not in receipt of SUSI grants. They are to the pin of their collar, paying for everything for their children to give them the best start they can, and this is becoming a serious obstacle. I was contacted two days ago by a woman who has a daughter in college in Galway. She is facing the prospect - a very good prospect - of her next daughter going to college this coming year and is wondering how she will afford it. This is a very serious problem. We need to look at rent caps on student accommodation and other measures that will protect students in the same way we have approached rent caps in the private rented accommodation sector. I know the Minister of State, Deputy Mary Mitchell O'Connor, and the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, are looking at this to see what the appropriate measures are. I believe this needs to be done as a matter of urgency and that some signal of hope is sent out to the hard-pressed families and students who are trying to get by to the effect that there will be a solution and they will not also become victims of our housing crisis.