Minister vows action on student housing shortage

Work is to begin at Government level to find ways to remove more than 25,000 students from the private rental market, five months after the Department of Education was alerted to the campus accommodation shortfall.

Education Minister Jan O’Sullivan is setting up an inter-departmental group of officials from her department, the Higher Education Authority (HEA), and three other government departments. It will examine proposals in a HEA report on existing and projected supply and demand for student accommodation.

Despite a planned near-trebling of public investment in dedicated student rooms to €1.2bn in the next decade, mainly by the universities, the HEA predicts a miniscule impact on unmet demand for bed spaces.