Failure to deliver student accommodation driving students into homelessness
Failure to deliver student accommodation driving students into homelessness - The Labour Party
Labour’s further and higher education spokesperson Senator Laura Harmon has called out Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil for failing to address the student accommodation crisis which is leading to hundreds of students living in homelessness.
Senator Harmon said:
“Figures published by AMLÉ show that 346 students reported being homeless during the 2024/25 academic year and this figure doesn’t capture the numbers of students couch surfing, crashing in the house of a friend, and it’s long before we factor in the massive distances that students are forced to commute.
“In March of this year, the Government published a student accommodation strategy which was utterly developer-led, and had initially floated ideas around starting classes later to allow students to commute time to arrive.
“It is ridiculous, it shows an utter dearth of ambition for the further and higher education sector. The housing crisis is the number one barrier students are experiencing when it comes to accessing further and higher education and Minister Lawless is failing to take it seriously.
“Already my office is inundated with students and families worried about the academic year ahead. From student fees, to the cost of rent, transport, and living in cities, the cost of going to further and higher education is now far beyond what ordinary families can sustain.
“It’s time to address the housing shortage and for Minister Lawless to wake up to the reality facing students and their families, and be on their side, not that of the developers. There is too much passing of responsibility between the Department of Housing and the Department of Further and Higher Education. We need to build on scale, TUs must be able to acquire land to build purpose-built student accommodation and rents for students should be capped.’’