Brendan Smith: Questions on student accommodation, rent-a-room and 42,000-bed gap

Thank you very much, Cathaoirleach, and I welcome our witnesses and thank them for their presentations. I think Mr Lamasse in his opening remarks referred to the affordability of accommodation and the huge pressure it puts on students and their families. That's a thing we are all conscious of every year, listening to our constituents and oftentimes when the stress is there for a student looking for accommodation. I'm glad that you also referred to the Rent A Room initiative. That's a very good initiative. I don't think it's advocated for enough. There are advertisements on the national and local media coming up to the beginning of term in the autumn. Maybe that type of advertising campaign could be done earlier. I think Minister Lauders did some interviews on local radio throughout the country last year speaking about the value of it, both from the point of view of the student and also the householder and the fact that a person can earn up to €14,000 without a tax liability. It's a very good scheme. Paul also, in his remarks, mentioned that literally there's 50,000 beds provided today under the student accommodation. You also mentioned that Going Farx mentioned that literally there's 50,000 beds provided today under the student accommodation. You also mentioned that going forward there are 14,000 beds. Another 16,000 I think would be needed over the next... another 42,000 additional beds over the next decade. I presume that's based on current participation in tertiary education, I presume. Again, you might be able to let us know, are we still very much at the top of the OECD EU league in regard to participation at tertiary level? You also mentioned about the nomination agreements and you were hoping that the technological universities that don't yet have approval to enter into nomination agreements. Do you know if there's a timeline to try to bring that process forward? Borda, you also mentioned about the significant development cost provided and consequently the level of funding. At the moment, do the universities or the technological universities, I presume that in the past the student accommodation has been by and large in our larger urban areas in Dublin and Galway. I know there was some in Sligo as well. Is it envisaged with the new status of the former institutes of technology that student accommodation would be developed in the like of Athlone, Dundalk, I know some was developed in the past in Sligo. Are those centres earmarked for student development as well? You also talked about accessibility to the university or the college. Are most of the student accommodation places, are they within walking distance or within reasonable access of the university or college that they belong to? Jason, you mentioned about the national planning statement. When is it proposed that that planning statement will be in place? Is my understanding correct that that will replace the present apartment planning guidelines? Also, have there been many instances of proposed developments not progressing because of objections to planning for such developments? Thank you. Deputy, on the affordability, we're very conscious of it. We're very conscious of the role of rent-a-room. We're also conscious of the supports that are there already, things like the rent tax credit, which enables a jointly assessed couple to claim €2,000 in rent tax credit. The Susie non-adjacent grant which amounts to about €146 million, increased by €10 million in the last budget for those living over 30 kilometres from their place of study. On the rent-a-room, it absolutely is a priority to grow rent-a-room. We will be asking individual universities as part of their strategies to promote it, and I know that many of them already do. We will be running campaigns targeted both at students, which you can't really do until August, September, because they don't know where they're going in many cases until then, but at university campuses for working with neighbouring properties in the months before that. That absolutely will be a feature every year, and it has shown a growth. I think the number of rent-a-room beds that are officially declared through the taxation system has grown from 8,000 to 16,000 from 2017 to 2023. So we do see a growing uptake in it, and we see a growing tax benefit of up to €42 million being gained by those who have availed of the scheme already. So we would see that being a very major growth opportunity looking forward. The gap of 42,000, that's based between now and 2035, and it is based on our projections of enrolments in publicly funded higher education institutions. It also picks up a backlog because it is recognised in the strategy that there are people who are currently commuting longer than an hour and a half to college, and it is recognised and academically researched that commutes longer than an hour and a half do affect on people's ability to participate in student life. So the strategy explicitly calls out that there are 15,000 students, or the equivalent of 15,000 students, currently travelling more than one and a half hours, and that's informed by a HEA survey of students. And we're planning that for the future, that backlog in demand would be included in the 42,000. So the 42,000 doesn't just include those looking forward in growth who will need accommodation, but in addition it also assumes an increased availability of accommodation for those who have long commutes at the moment. As regards regional development, absolutely places like Athlone and Sligo are most definitely envisaged for development, that is correct. And as regards accessibility, I don't have details on the location of PBSA, but it's generally close to campus. Our experience from visiting it, it would be close to campus, or if it's in a city and it's privately run, it might be equidistant between two campuses, that kind of thing. Yeah, I think that's all I've got. Yeah, just to come in on your question around location to campuses, so if it's purpose built, it's generally approximate to campus or has good transfer links, and that's what we've seen, I suppose, across the sector. And to come in on the point around students travelling, we've done two iterations of our student survey with 37,000 respondents, and we found I think it was around 18% of those living at home were commuting three hours a day to get to college, and that's informed the department's strategy of targeting those 15,000 students in terms of delivering beds. Thanks, Deputy. Just in terms of the MPS, it is progressing as a priority. I can't give an exact date on when it will be finalised, but it will replace the existing guidelines once it is issued. Just in terms of any applications that do not progress due to objections, look, any objections received during the planning process are considered by the relevant planning authority. The issues raised in those objections would be addressed in the reports of the planners, and a determination will be made by the planning authority to either grant with conditions or to refuse a proposed development. That's in general. I suppose the only thing relating to objections is that if an application is obviously a planning local authority's decision is appealed to on commission for NOLA, that will cause a delay, or if it was proposed to grant it, or that if it was subject to a judicial review, and that's either the decision of the local authority or the decision of on commission for NOLA. Thank you. Could I just ask, to your knowledge, have there been many applications appealed to commission for NOLA or for judicial review? Regarding PPSD, we don't have any data on that, but I could find out more information on that. If it's possible. Thank you.