New student accommodation strategy will not deliver affordability
New student accommodation strategy will not deliver affordability - The Labour Party
The Labour Party spokesperson on further and higher education Senator Laura Harmon has criticised the Government’s student accommodation strategy published today describing it as failing to protect student renters and being overly developer led.
Senator Harmon said:
“The housing crisis is the number one barrier students are experiencing when it comes to accessing further and higher education. If this strategy is the best thing Government could come up with, we are staring down a continued crisis across the sector.
“This strategy is developer led with enormous reliance on the private market.
“It failed to include the very basic protections that students have been calling out for, like capping student rents and ensuring that service charges cannot be used an excuse to drive up rent beyond the 2% RPZ rate.
“We have already seen huge on-campus accommodation increases in Dublin and Cork because of a failure to protect students from unreasonable service charge increases. These charges must be clamped down upon.
“Landlords will be able to reset rents between tenancies, which will drive student accommodation prices further out of reach for people.
“While it’s welcome to see that the Minister seems to have rolled back on his bizarre suggestion to instruct colleges to tinker with timetables and start later to allow commuters attend, my fear is that this strategy will fail to make any meaningful change for the thousands of students who simply cannot afford to live near further and higher education institutions.
‘’It will be vital that opportunities for technological universities to borrow in order to acquire land to build and purchase their own accommodation for students are fast tracked.
“The sector has been awaiting this strategy for over two years and what Minister Lawless has come up with today falls far short of what was needed.
“At a time when the cost of living, the cost of commuting, the cost of eating and the cost of renting continue to skyrocket, the Minister for Further and Higher Education needs to be more on the side of students, not developers.
“This is the same Minister who has presided over a €500 increase in annual student fees. Families can’t take any more pressure. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil have effectively moved to widen the gap when it comes to accessing further and higher education in Ireland through the publication of this strategy today.”