It is a priority of mine to make higher education more accessible, as I have been saying in reply to earlier questions. Part of this is the cost of accommodation, the cost of putting a roof over everyone's head, and making sure that the students are ideally as close to their college as possible. I firmly believe that the student experience and the college experience necessitates, and is enhanced by, being proximate to the college and having the opportunity to not only be in college for classes, but to attend extracurricular activities and to form new friendships and new networks. Notwithstanding that hybrid lectures and online study can be useful and can be of assistance in certain ways, there is no substitute for the real life in-person interaction. Student accommodation, therefore, is so important for many reasons. There are two ways we go about that. One is through viability and the other is through supply.

Specifically on the Deputy's question and focusing on the service charges and whether they are used as a way around rental restrictions in terms of the law, there are two points. The legislation governing that is the law on rent pressure zones, which is outside of my Department. This jurisdiction is within the preserve of the Minister for housing, Deputy Browne, and his Department. I would say strongly that student accommodation falls under the remit of the Residential Tenancies Board, RTB. The board offers a dispute resolution service and it has the authority to investigate breaches of rental law, any improper conduct, any unlawful rent increases and any misbehaviour by landlords, including student landlords. This all absolutely comes into the domain of the RTB. The board can impose sanctions of up to €15,000 in fines. Any student or any representative of students who comes across a situation where they believe the RPZs are not being honoured or that the legislation is not being adhered, should make a report to the RTB and have it investigated by that independent body, which is commissioned for that purpose, so the full force of the law can be brought to bear in those situations.

The Minister said that he does not like to see this happening in reply to me in committee. However, the RTB has said that if the rent is set out at the start with the services charged separately, the charge can stay separate. We have seen in institutions that the increase is around 7%, when we look at the rent rise and the rise of the service charges. I would like the Minister to sit down with the Minister for housing to try to work this out a framework and put protections in place. Otherwise, service charges that are separate to rent will soar high and then students will be ripped off again. This cannot go on. We have already had this in other institutions. I acknowledge the Minister cannot do anything about that because it is already in place but I would like him to sit down with the Minister for housing to discuss this.

I have indeed sat down with the Minister for housing. We had a number of good interactions over the past year, and particularly when he announced his intention to bring forward the reform of the rent pressure zones and to legislate for that. We immediately engaged on that and we spent a long time working out the details of how that would affect students. One of the outputs of that is the special protection regulation for students specifically stating that student-specific accommodation is safe from the regular rent reset that can happen in other private accommodation when a tenant vacates. Where there is a student apartment, regardless how many students come and go, the rent cannot be reset for a minimum of at least three years. This is a very specific protection measure to save students from the annual reset. We know the way students operate and how they come and go with each academic year. This is in law. It passed through these Houses and is now enshrined in the rental acts, and rightly so.

I hear that but I am still not hearing that the Minister will examine the service charge and the rent section going out together. It is a loophole and it will cause issues for students down the line if service charges can go up. They did in one institution recently where the cost increased by 7%. We need to sit down with students, with the Minister for housing and with the Minister, Deputy Lawless, to discuss this important issue. This loophole needs to be closed to protect students and others in rental accommodation.

I have ongoing engagement with the Minister for housing and we have had a very structured and productive engagement, which led to the student exemption and the protection window of three years being imposed in the new rental protection Acts. I hear the issue that the Deputy raises. I have written directly to one or two institutions where I was made aware of this practice. I advised them that I did not feel this was in the spirit of the law, while within the letter of the law. It certainly is not within the spirit of the law. I made my views very clear on that. The Deputy will understand that there is a limit to the powers I exercise here. They are independent entities. There is legislation in place to govern it but we have a dedicated stand-alone agency, which is the RTB, to investigate any breaches of the laws. Where there are situations that come to the Deputy's attention, or to any student's attention, I strongly encourage them to make a report to the RTB and they could be investigated accordingly.