Student Accommodation and Supports: Statements
Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-26
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Victor Boyhan (IND), Agricultural Panel

I welcome the Minister and thank him for facilitating this really focused debate on student access, accommodation, etc. I take on board his point about innovation, which warrants another, separate debate in the Seanad. There are many progressive developments ongoing, particularly in regard to STEM, on-campus sites and the synergies between the private sector and education. It is a really exciting space and there are real opportunities within it for a great synergy of private investment funding that could be tied up to pay back to universities. As well as being about learning, universities are also about evolving innovation and research. I welcome the developments in that regard.
I thank the Minister for publishing the national student accommodation strategy for 2026 to 2035. It is a very exciting document. We are at the early stages yet, with a number of follow-on measures to come, which I will mention presently. It is important to note some of the problems. As politicians, we are involved in policy formation but I would not like people listening to this debate to think we are somehow tone-deaf to the real issues and challenges facing third level students. I am aware, as is the Minister, that the student accommodation crisis is a major barrier for some to accessing higher education. That crisis is primarily driven by the severe shortage of accommodation, which is tied to exorbitant rents and precarious living conditions. Those significant challenges directly lead to financial stress, extreme daily commutes and poor academic and mental health outcomes for many people. These are not easy times for students.
The provision of purpose-built student accommodation is an important and exciting development but, in the past, people managed to facilitate many students in small and non-purpose-built accommodation. There is room for the private sector but any provision must be based on good quality standards. We see around us the intense competition for limited on-campus accommodation. Last week, I visited Trinity College's Trinity Hall accommodation in Dartry. It is an amazing campus, which is used for other purposes in the summer. I will not say it is self-financing but the accommodation is not empty outside term time. It is used for education, leisure, conferences and other activities. That is an important model to consider.
Campus housing is full, with many students forced to rely on substandard accommodation in the private sector. It is an issue I know the Minister is committed to tackling, along with the Minister for housing, Deputy Browne. The low level of accommodation availability is a challenge. I spoke to a person last week about long-distance commuting. There are students commuting from Galway to UCD on a daily basis, which is tough. People spend hours hanging around on campus waiting for buses that may turn up at the wrong time. Feeding themselves is another expense. There are a lot of challenges and difficulties due to the lack of housing options.
We all know about rising living costs and they are a particular issue for students. Some have told me they are eating chicken-filled baguettes for their lunch. Will the Minister consider piloting a free scheme providing main meals for students who wish to avail of them? We could not provide free food for all students initially but I ask him to consider identifying some third level establishments in which a scheme could be delivered offering one hot meal a day as an option for students. Such a scheme would have to be piloted initially and then assessed. I make that request to the Minister today because students are making it to me. They tell me they are living off takeaways because the food available is not good. They are meant to be at their peak of health to learn but they are not getting the nutrition they require. In the context of rising living costs and the associated challenges of people having to commute every day or second day from the west to Dublin, we can all agree that we all need food, rest and decent accommodation in which to lay our heads and recharge. The impact of food and nutrition is really important in the lives of students.
Health, including mental health, is really important. We are seeing students dropping out of university. I acknowledge and praise the work going on in UCD with students who have had to opt out. There are implications of dropping out of courses in terms of grants and funding. UCD is running schemes to give people a year out, not to do nothing but to pause, tie into other ways of learning and have an opportunity to get back on the moving academic bus. That is important.
Exorbitant rents are a major challenge. We know the high demand in Dublin, Cork, Galway and Limerick is a problem. Students are unable to immerse themselves in college life, which is all about formation. Student life is about more than academia. Sport, for example, is critically important. It is about personal development, relationship building, mental health, participation and volunteering. These are all critical parts of young people's development and they are missing out on them. Many students have no option but to live in really overcrowded accommodation, with many of them sharing rooms with multiple people they do not know morning, noon and night. I have heard of six or seven people living in a bedsitter in Rathmines. They do not want to complain. All they want is to get through their college career. Students are also reporting subpar living conditions, including a lack of any heating, no access to the Internet and no cooking facilities.
That also ties in with my suggestion in regard to food for the pilot. Mental health and anxiety issues are serious and they need to be addressed and targeted. We can do that through the availability of on-campus or off-campus support for students. It is optional and we have to give options there.
At the end of the day, many students are feeling insecure, are under pressure and do not have the accommodation to meet their needs. The easy option is to struggle to continue on with their academic work and have a full-time job. I am told there are many students who are in full-time employment and are balancing night hours or early hours with being a student. They are trying to be a full-time student and a full-time employee and they do not tell their employer about this set of circumstances. They are run ragged and are under fierce pressure. Not everyone survives and many crack so that is a problem.
For students, living in casual, rental room situations carries enormous risk. We have heard of cases of students being put under pressure. There are anecdotal suggestions of prostitution in lieu of rent; this has been raised in this House, in the Lower House and in the committees. These are the sorts of challenges students are facing.
I acknowledge and thank the Minister for the National Student Accommodation Strategy 2026-2035, but it has to be more than just physical accommodation. It has to meet the holistic needs of students in universities, in other third level institutions, in apprenticeships and in all forms of learning and support. When students have to come to the big towns and the big cities and do not have accommodation, it will cost them and many people are backing off.
The Minister's proposal has an implementation action plan for his strategy, but he has yet to establish the implementation strategy. He will put in place mechanisms. He might keep the House informed of those. This is an excellent document. It has only recently been published. It is a pathway for a very clear intention the Minister has driven and personally taken great interest in so I commend him and his Minister of State on this strategy and wish them well.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-05-26/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:59+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-26