John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail)
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479. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government the measures being taken to increase the supply of dedicated student accommodation to free up units in the general rental market; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [33462/17]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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A number of measures, many of which come under Pillar 4 of the Rebuilding Ireland Action Plan For Housing and Homelessness, are being progressed to support greater provision of student accommodation, and thereby also increasing the availability of dwellings within the general rental market, particularly in our cities and large towns.

Based on construction activity figures compiled by the Higher Education Authority (HEA) in April 2017, a total of 1,067 additional bed spaces of purpose-built student accommodation have been completed since the publication of Rebuilding Ireland in July 2016. Furthermore, over 9,800 additional student accommodation bed spaces are expected to be developed by both Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) and private developments nationally by 2019, based on projects currently under construction (4,300 bed spaces) and projects where planning permission has been applied for (3,500 bed spaces) or is already granted (c.2,000 bed spaces).  A process for monitoring of delivery of these proposed developments has also been put in place. 

To assist with access to finance, the Planning and Development (Housing) and Residential Tenancies Act 2016 includes provisions enabling the HEIs to access finance from the Housing Finance Agency specifically for student accommodation projects.

In addition, student accommodation complexes of 200 or more bed spaces will benefit from the new fast-track application process directly to An Bord Pleanála under the 2016 Act. This will have major potential to cut processing time and enhance certainty in the provision of new accommodation projects.

In order to maximise the potential for student accommodation provision on suitable sites as part of mixed developments, an inventory of publicly owned lands has been assembled by my Department.  The information, including the mapping of the sites identified, was published in April 2017 and is available via the Rebuilding Ireland website at the following link:

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The combination of these measures will allow for the freeing up of units in the general rental market as students move towards purpose-built student accommodation units, giving other households in the rental sector a better chance to avail of rental accommodation.

It should be noted also that, under Rebuilding Ireland, the Department of Education and Skills committed to the preparation of a Student Accommodation Strategy and I understand that the work on this is now at an advanced stage.