The Irish Times view on the student housing crisis: a test the State has failed

The current student accommodation crisis comes as no surprise. It has been obvious for months that a combination of a shortage of rental properties and the arrival of refugees from Ukraine were going to make it even more difficult than usual for students to find a place to live. Add in the late delivery of Leaving Certificate results and you get something of a perfect storm creating a lot of pressures on students and their families.

Attempts to fix this over the years have only partially delivered. The building of student accommodation has created new options, but there are too few of them and in many cases they are too expensive. Building work has slowed down on many campuses.

An urgent review is needed, with future years in mind. The model to deliver this kind of accommodation, as with so much in the housing market, leaves the outcome unaffordable to many. This issue needs to be considered as part of the wider question of funding third-level education, both for social and economic reasons.

For this year, many students are left without options. Some will have to defer their courses. Others will never take up the offers and will end up going down different routes. Not only in major urban centres but across the country, acute shortages are causing a massive scramble.

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For some, the rent-a-room scheme may provide an option – and give some cash to the householder concerned. Universities and student unions are encouraging householders to consider this option. It may help, but only in a limited way. Universities should consider expanding online options for those who cannot attend in-person every day, due for example to long commutes.

The State has responded well to many emergencies in recent years – notably the Covid crisis, when supports for households and businesses were put in place within weeks. But the response to longer-term issues can often be ponderous and slow. That there would be a student accommodation crisis this year was obvious. Yet the system seems unable to make an impact, seemingly overwhelmed by its scale.

This sends out a bad message to students. And is deeply unfair to them. The State offered great flexibility in helping them through the Leaving Cert – to the extent that grade inflation is itself now a problem. But when they try to cross the next hurdle and find a viable way of going to college, this new barrier appears, offering particular problems to the less well-off and to those who live far from a third-level institution.

Ireland does some things well. But the State seems to face predictable annual crises – the student accommodation crisis will be followed bya hospital trolley crisis – and seems flat-footed when it does. The system needs to develop a greater capability to respond.