Marie Sherlock (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for coming to the Chamber. I thank my colleague, Senator Moynihan, for bringing forward this important Bill. I am sure the Minister of State, like many us, has not been immune to the many stories in recent weeks of students finding it near impossible to get accommodation and of students having to undertake arduous commutes to college simply because they cannot find accommodation for the academic year.In certain parts of the country there is a very serious shortage of affordable accommodation, let alone student accommodation. Some of those issues will not be resolved overnight, but there are issues particular to Dublin that we believe can be resolved overnight. That is the purpose of our Bill today. When we heard students telling us about their experiences, we went to the effort of ringing a number of local student accommodation facilities in the Dublin 1 and Dublin 7 areas. It was galling to discover that in the likes of Ardcairn, Dominick Street and Dorset Point there were vacancies and the prices ranged from between €240 to €253 per week. To put that in perspective, the 100% adjacent SUSI grant - Senator Moynihan spoke about the SUSI grant - would not even cover three months in one of these facilities. While the latest increase in the grant in the budget is welcome, it would not even cover one extra week. We have students crying out for affordable student rooms in this city and all the while there are purpose-built student rooms lying empty.

The key question that must be asked is why we have not seen a fall in prices to meet student demand. The reason is that we have repeatedly seen decisions made by Dublin City Council and An Bord Pleanála to grant permission to student accommodation operators to let their accommodation to tourists and for other uses. In Dublin 1 and Dublin 7 right now we have 987 student rooms that can potentially be rented for short- to medium-term use until May 2022. It is worth quoting from An Bord Pleanála's inspector report of February with regard to one of these applications:

The applicant has stated that the operator of the site has recently received enquiries from key workers, construction workers, recent graduates and interns who have been struggling to find suitable short-term accommodation in Dublin at reasonable cost. The applicant sees the current proposal as a way of meeting the identified present need.

Addressing the concern that allowing student accommodation to be used in this way would interfere with or damage hotels and those truly offering tourist accommodation in the city, the inspector suggests that this type of accommodation "provides a different type of offering for visitors and tourists alike" and believes it would not "have a significant negative impact on the existing hotel or other tourism accommodation stock". There we have it. If that is not co-living by the back door, I do not know what is.

According to a report published by planners from Dublin City Council on 30 July last:

The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly reduced the need for student accommodation and therefore, the [Dominick Street] development will remain vacant for the academic year unless an alternate use is established ...

The Government announced on 15 June last the wide-scale return of students in September and October 2021. The Minister, Deputy Harris, spoke about 200,000 students going physically back into college this academic year, and yet we have planners relying on Covid-19 to justify a request by student accommodation operators to change the use of student accommodation facilities. When we look at the circular that came from the Government; the holes that are in government, as we would see it; and the ignoring of the reality of student demand, we believe there has to be a legislative intervention. It is simply not acceptable that student accommodation operators and their owners can use the planning system to cushion themselves against future losses.

On a wider point, there are real questions to be raised about the purpose and intent of the planning system to shape communities for the long term. Do we really want to introduce so much flexibility into the planning system that we have little or no assurance as to the use of a building 12 or 24 months after it opens? The question we must ask about this temporary conversion is this: what is temporary? In a number of facilities in Dublin 1 and Dublin 7, applications have been made on at least two occasions to have a temporary conversion. The goalposts have shifted each time. First it was because they could not meet the construction schedule in time and had missed the start of the academic term. Then it was because of the supposed severe drop in student demand. God only knows what the next excuse will be when they want to apply next year. Is the Government prepared to stand over the planning system as it currently stands? Are we going to allow operators and investors to change the use of buildings at a relative whim?

I would like to reflect on my own experience. When I came to Dublin 21 years ago as a college student, there was a serious student accommodation crisis. I lived in a rundown old house in Ranelagh where we paid below the market rate. I was lucky. I was living on the grant, my part-time job and small support from my parents. It was the only place I could afford. Many of my friends were living in cramped accommodation. One group had to take a penthouse in the IFSC which was grand because their parents could pay, but so many other parents, including my own, could not. Are we going to entrench that divide between students who have financial backing and those who do not? That is what this student accommodation crisis is really about. Time and again we talk about the very high share of college graduates in our workforce but what kind of educational outcomes do we expect if people are forced to commute to class for very long hours or to stay in a hotel or on somebody's couch? What are the conditions that are going to be conducive to students surviving college and doing well?

We heard today from the Union of Students in Ireland, USI, which we have met over many weeks now, that there are very real fears that people are going to leave college because they cannot secure accommodation. Students might be forgiven for thinking that nothing has changed in the two decades since I came to Dublin to go to college. However, there has been a significant change. Senator Moynihan referred to the 2017 report which identified the need for purpose-built accommodation, and we have had that purpose-built accommodation built in this city. In the area where I live in the inner city there were concerns at the time that we needed to see more residential accommodation and that was a legitimate concern. However, there was also a realisation of the fact that with our brand new and amazing Grangegorman campus and our proximity to the city centre and to Dublin City University, we also needed to have student accommodation. What people are not prepared to accept is that these facilities would now be changed to some other use.

We would like to see the Government support this Bill. We believe there is an urgency to this legislation. Places cannot be built overnight. This legislation could be progressed very quickly. We hope that the Government does the right thing and supports the legislation.