Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. This is a concise Bill. As he said, it is in seven sections. It is fair and balanced and has my full support. I apologise in advance; the Oireachtas audit committee is having an important meeting and I am a member of it so will have to leave. I flag now my full support for all sections of the Bill. There are a number of asks on our schedule today. One is to consider all Stages of this Bill, which has has my full support. Immediately after this is a motion regarding the earlier signature by the President of the Bill. Again, I indicate my full support for that.

Why do I support and welcome this Bill? It is fair, equitable, balanced and reasonable. It has to be noted that the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage considered a request by the Minister to waive pre-legislative scrutiny of this legislation and we did so unanimously. To be fair to the Department, it gave us an overview. It is concise, simple, easy to read and easy to understand, and the motivation behind it is clear. I thank the Department for that. We considered the request and waived our right to have pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill. There was close co-operation between the committee and the the Department, and that is important.

I welcome this Bill, which will legislatively ensure that student-specific accommodation leases are aligned to the academic year. That is what the Minister of State has said and that is really important. It is also important that we improve tenancy rights for students specifically because they have specific needs. No one needs to be lectured on the importance of affordable, reasonable and appropriate accommodation, particularly in the universities in the bigger cities, where it is very expensive. Part of this greater debate has to be the roll-out of more accommodation specific to students. That is a real challenge for all campuses. Under the legislation, student accommodation will follow the traditional, standard, September-to-May, up-to-41-weeks academic year, unless - and this is an important point to make - the student himself or herself requests a tenancy in excess of 41 weeks. That too is permitted, so we need to be clear that this is not a blanket ban. If there is a mutual arrangement, and that is the requirement of the student, that can be exercised. Students, parents and guardians are paying very large rents, and any of them I have talked to and in the emails I have received, they very much welcome this, which is an important point.

Student representative bodies and parents and guardians of students have welcomed the Bill. Many students, as the Minister of State will know, since he is from a rural constituency, return to rural constituencies. Many go back to their farmlands. They help out in farm and agricultural practices. Many take up work in other parts of the country; indeed, they may go outside the country for work. Many of our students want to work. They understand the dignity of work and get work experience but they also supplement their income. They may have tuition fees or additional needs as students. That is to be supported and it is admirable. It is important that students have the right to return home.

To return to your home base and then find you are still tied into a tenancy agreement in some other part of the country and paying rent is clearly not right and proper and this proposed legislation seeks to address this issue. The practice of paying rent for accommodation that people are not staying in is ludicrous and I am glad this point has been taken on board. Students should not be forced to have to pay for accommodation when they are not living in it. That is an important point in this Bill.

Housing for All included various commitments in relation to the long-term policy of developing student accommodation. We have other demands on housing. I am a realist and pragmatist and not a hurler on the ditch. The reality is that we need to refocus and double down on our commitments, whether they are to public private partnerships or synergies, to enable us to build additional capacity for student accommodation. There is a financial burden and need to remove it. We have to address any impediment that frustrates people in pursuing further education. This Bill does that.

It is important to make the point that students will have recourse to the Residential Tenancies Board. We had its interim director, Owen Keegan, in and he made this point in respect of the RTB. If people have specific queries about their accommodation or landlords, wish to refer a dispute for resolution or make a complaint in respect of improper conduct, the RTB is willing, able and ready to carry out proper investigations. That must be welcomed. It is also important to note that the RTB provides a comprehensive dispute resolution process. It is confidential, secure and appropriate to the circumstances. As the Minister of State has done, I too encourage people who have difficulties with their tenancies, be they students or anyone else, although we are talking about students here, to contact the RTB. It has a website with a student contact number on a designated section. I encourage students to avail of it.

I fully support every aspect of this Bill. I commend the Government for driving it forward. It is important that we get on with it and do the business today because there is no conflict in terms of any of the aspects of the Bill. It has my full support. I apologise in advance that I will not be here later.