Quality Student Accommodation and a Decent Education: I ran into an old high school acquaintance who had attended university in Dublin and remained there after graduating. She mentioned that students from Dublin who were studying in Dublin could save money on housing expenses. Undoubtedly, many current and future university students in Ireland are envious of those who can reside at home while studying in Dublin, Cork, or other Irish university cities.
The crisis in student housing garnered media attention around this time last year, and it appears that a year has done little to alleviate the situation. The difficulties encountered by third-level students in procuring housing are, of course, closely related to Ireland’s housing crisis as a whole.
Granted, neither our current housing crisis nor the specific challenges it poses for students are unique to Ireland. In September 2022, the University of Glasgow reportedly advised students without housing to withdraw or postpone their studies due to a lack of private rented housing in the city. In the meantime, the Netherlands is contemplating limiting the number of international students due to the housing crisis and student housing scarcity.
The fact that other nations also face student housing shortages is of little consolation to Irish university students weighing their housing options for the impending academic year. Some students will feel compelled to make lengthy commutes to campus, departing early, returning late, and spending time between classes in the library or any other available space on campus.
Others will endeavour to rent a flat or house with a group of friends. However, a severe lack of inventory and high rents will make it difficult for many students to locate affordable housing.
Quality Student Accommodation and a Decent Education
The 2017 National Student Accommodation Strategy identified privately managed, purpose-built student housing as the primary solution to the student housing shortage. Since 2019, such private student housing has been required to provide its occupants with legal protections under residential tenancy law.
This provision was enacted in response to the Shanowen Shakedown campaign, which was prompted by significant rent increases in student-specific housing. However, the cost of such housing remains prohibitive for many.
A fortunate few will have university-provided halls of residence, but these can be nearly as expensive as their private counterparts and are typically assigned to specific student groups first. Despite the fact that many Irish universities plan to construct more of this type of housing in the future, there is currently a shortage.
Recently, the rent-a-room initiative has been the focus of the Irish government’s response to the crisis in student housing. Under this programme, an individual can rent out a room or rooms in their home or an attached but self-contained unit and earn up to €14,000 tax-free. Recently, the programme was expanded to permit social welfare recipients to rent out unused rooms in their residences without affecting their benefits.
The rent-a-room scheme may appear to benefit both students and individuals with spare accommodations. However, there are significant disadvantages from the students’ perspective. First, this is not a student-specific scheme. According to the guidelines, it does not apply to the householder’s children, spouse, or civil partner, but it does apply to anyone else to whom the homeowner rents for more than 28 days.
Second, the limit of €14,000 benefits homeowners more than those pursuing housing. The scheme implies that it is completely acceptable to hire a room for more than €1,000 per month. The plan may be intended to address the housing crisis, but it unwittingly serves as an excellent example of it.
The price of a solitary room might be justifiable if the room provided adequate housing, but this brings me to my third point: the rent-a-room scheme is frequently not covered by residential tenancy laws. Unless the proprietor opts out, any self-contained unit, such as a basement unit, rented under this programme will be governed by residential tenancies legislation.
Those who merely rent a room, however, are licensees and not tenants. These licensees receive no security of tenure, no protection against rent increases, and, with the exception of those paying with the Housing Assistance Payment, no assurance that their room is habitable.
To be explicit, granting additional protections to licensees under the rent-a-room scheme would be exceptionally difficult, if not impossible. The constitutional protections for property rights would make it difficult to guarantee security of tenure for mere licensees, as the equilibrium would be entirely different than in areas where the landlord resides.
However, there are measures the government could adopt to enhance the programme. Given the generous tax incentives, some oversight of the rent-a-room arrangement seems prudent in the short term. Numerous student unions, for instance, assist proprietors in advertising rooms to their students, and these platforms provide some protections for both parties. These initiatives serve as a model for future endeavours.
The government could also modify the programme to make renting to students more advantageous than renting to others. Long-term, the construction of additional student housing and other types of housing will be necessary to resolve the housing crisis. Thus, the recent announcement of State funding for affordable university-provided student housing is extremely welcome.
However, until such affordable student housing becomes available, the inequality caused by the lack of housing will continue to grow. Those pupils who are able to study at home have, arguably, a significant advantage over those who cannot. Nowadays, it appears that decent housing, not education, is the ticket to a better life.
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