It was all smiles at the launch of the government’s student accommodation strategy. Ministers mingled and Provost Patrick Prendergast proudly showed off the 250-bed Oisín House project. It’s a multi-million euro, once-in-a-decade project. And without the national accommodation strategy, it would most certainly still exist.
Yes, the strategy makes the right noises and nods in the right direction. Indeed, there aren’t enough beds for students and, yes, affordable accommodation close to campuses is desirable. A radical plan to achieve these aims, however, the new strategy is not. One question, directed at Prendergast during the launch, asked if Trinity had been given a state grant for Oisín House. “We did ask”, he shrugged.
Under the new plan, colleges can expect the same answer from the government. The promise of a better borrowing culture will be good news for universities, but they might be disappointed to learn that once again the state has deigned not to offer to foot some of the bill.
Institutes of technology, too, are once again left out in the cold. Granting institutes of technology the power to borrow would have been a sensible solution to the housing crisis. Instead, we only have a vague commitment that such an idea is still being considered.
If students and universities are unimpressed with the plan, private student accommodation developers must be content. Their value in the market, secured in writing, will wave off challenges to the claims their beds are too expensive for the average student. And with no real plans to help universities in the battle to secure the city centre sites they so desperately need to build accommodation, we shouldn’t expect to see a shrinking of the private student accommodation market that is beginning to dominate Irish cities.
To put it bluntly, the plan offers little in the way of concrete, long-term solutions to a sector that long ago got used to the rough and tough of the country’s property market. Universities will continue to battle for sites, institutes of technology will keep sitting placidly and powerless and students will once again dread the return of September and October and the rush to find a home.
