Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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62. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the provisions being made, or that will be made, to meet the full requirements of student accommodation adjacent to schools or colleges; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27034/24]

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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64. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills his views on the national student accommodation strategy; when an update will be published; the measures he is taking to ensure students from Meath who are unable to stay in the family home are able to find suitable accommodation at the beginning of the new academic year; the measures he is taking to ensure there is adequate supply of suitable affordable student accommodation; the measures he is taking to ensure there is an adequate supply of suitable affordable student accommodation for students from Meath; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27024/24]

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Regarding the accommodation information that may be available, have any universities or third level institutions been identified? For instance, Maynooth University has already been identified and has achieved some progress in that area. The previous Minister made that information available to the House. Does that apply to any other third level institutions?

Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 62 and 64 together.

I am committed to progressing a new policy to provide State assistance to stimulate the development of new student accommodation. In April, the Taoiseach and I announced capital investment of €100 million from the national development plan windfall allocation for delivery of student accommodation projects. This enables the activation of 1,014 beds in UCD, DCU and Maynooth. Our long-term policy was approved by the Government on 16 January 2024. The approach includes measures for increasing supply of student accommodation through State support, reducing cost of delivery through standardised design guidance, and promoting efficient use of existing stock and vacancy while supporting balanced regional development.

The policy will continue to focus on the provision of digs accommodation. It is important to recognise the role and provision of supply from the private sector in key campus locations, as I said previously to Deputy Farrell. We have extended measures under the rent a room scheme to increase supply for students, including an income disregard for SUSI and medical card eligibility, and expansion for local authority tenants to participate in the scheme for students. The Minister for housing and his officials are expediting legal changes to restrict 51-week lease agreements for students who do not require them.

Current supply figures indicate that 14,599 new beds have been built since 2017. Of these, nearly 1,500 were completed in 2023. Work is under way on site on an additional 2,090 bed spaces, while planning permission has been obtained for a further 10,986 beds. Planning applications in respect of a further 2,016 beds have been sought. As of 31 May, our higher education institutions have indicated that there are approximately 2,221 beds available in digs accommodation nationally.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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What is the degree to which it is anticipated the need can be met in full, insofar as is possible, given the information available about catchment areas of various colleges or universities?

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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This is a significant issue in my county, Meath, particularly for people travelling from north Meath into Dublin, for example. Some people are lucky enough to be able to live at home but they are denied the independence of living away from home during their college years. The issue above all else, though there are others, such as transport connections, is the issue of affordability. What is the Minister doing to address the issue of the lack of affordability of student accommodation? An important feature of this is whether capital investment will be included in the budget this year. It was incredible to me and to many others that capital investment was not included in last year's budget. Will that be addressed in the year ahead?

Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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There was capital investment in the past 12 months. I outlined it in the response that I gave. It came from the windfall. The current supply figures show that almost 15,000 beds have been completed since 2017. Of these, 1,500 were completed in 2023 alone. As I said a while ago with regard to costs, one of the most important things, which I hope the Deputy will welcome and support, is the legislation that the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, will bring forward on the 51-week versus 40-week leases for students, where they are not charged for the time outside term when they are not there. I hope the Deputy supports that.

Deputy Durkan's homeplace includes Maynooth University, which is one of the three that have been advanced. We will be anxious to see what other levers are available to us. The long-standing, older universities have access to the European Investment Bank, as I mentioned a while ago. Some of them have used it quite effectively and have borrowing mechanisms. Others are using different tools. A substantial number of private sector planning permissions have been granted and, for one reason or another, have not been taken up. There is a body of work to encourage local authorities to make sure that unused planning permissions are taken up where possible and to engage with developers. As well as that, the town centre first and the vacancy proposals that have been supported by the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, through the rural and urban regeneration programmes are other initiatives that have been welcomed in many provincial towns such as Maynooth. They have given life back to the centre of towns, where older properties can be brought back into use through schemes such as Croí Cónaithe, which the Department will certainly support.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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Given the information that is available and the planning permission that has been taken up and is viable at this stage, if numbers can be calculated from that, what number will be available in the next academic year and in subsequent years, with a view to ensuring that we get before the problem before the problem accelerates and gets before us?

Darren O'Rourke (Meath East, Sinn Fein)
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It is just a statement of fact that there is nowhere near the necessary accommodation to meet demand. The accommodation that is available is not in any way affordable to people. The Minister talked about his experience of being in digs in the city of Cork. In my college experience in the city of Dublin 25 years ago, it was digs, private rented and shared accommodation, all on a maintenance grant. There is not a snowball's chance in hell that you could afford that in 2024. On the issue of affordability, to play around with numbers and re-present the same figures as the Minister's predecessor has done time and again is simply unacceptable. We need to see progress on this. I accept the point about the upcoming legislation. I am sure we on this side of the House and colleagues will engage with that. We need to see these issues progressed and addressed rapidly.

Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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Not to point out the obvious, but we do not own the accommodation. In most of the cases, it is private. In Dublin, for instance, at the end of May 2024, the data that the universities provided themselves, as well as for digs accommodation for Maynooth, shows that there were 140 rooms for Trinity, 228 rooms for UCD, 217 for DCU, and 174 for Maynooth. It behoves all Deputies to recognise the fact that there is an issue but many things have been done. The Deputy never addressed the substantial tax changes made in the last budget or the fact that when he was Minister, Deputy Harris made substantial changes to SUSI eligibility. He never addressed the fact that SUSI was changed considerably for four consecutive budgets by Deputy Harris when he was Minister in the Department. He never addressed the legislation, which I hope he will support, which the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, will bring in. We know there is a problem but we have done an awful lot. The glass is not half empty.

To create this impression that there is nothing going on is not fair to the officials in the Department, the universities themselves or the parents of families who take in students, as they did for me and others. The Deputy is actually being a bit disingenuous.

With regard to Deputy Durkan’s point, I do not have the data available to me in a tabular form broken down by each of the local authority areas, but I will get that for the Deputy. I will also get information for him about which are due to expire because that is probably the most important thing. There may be planning permissions that are due to expire that can add substantially to this. We need help from the private sector. Some political parties believe the private sector has no role here. I do not believe that. I believe the private sector has a really important part to play here, such as by bringing people into their own homes or renting houses to them. I do not think it should be vilified. I will get the data for the Deputy.

Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister.