Government proposes plans for €100m student accommodation funding
The Government is expected to announce a significant increase in funding for student accommodation.
Today, Cabinet is set to highlight plans to allocate €100m in funding for over 1,000 student accommodation beds at three universities.
It is anticipated that the Minister for Higher Education, Patrick O’Donovan, will bring a memo to Cabinet, outlining construction plans for 1,014 purpose-built student accommodation beds.
493 of those beds will be granted for University College Dublin (UCD). Meanwhile, 405 beds will be built at Dublin City University (DCU), and 116 beds will be constructed at Maynooth University.
It has been noted that a third of the new beds will be allocated for students who either qualify for the Susi grant or come from a low-income family.
It is hoped that construction of the new accommodation will commence later this year at both DCU and Maynooth University. However, work at UCD will not start until early 2025.
The news of student accommodation comes as university bodies continue to express their frustrations at the system.
In an interview with RSVP in October of last year, Maynooth University’s Student Union President, Alex Balfe, highlighted the difficulties that university students are facing each year.
“On a day-to-day basis, we deal with education issues, welfare, equality, and then everything to do with student life as well. We'd sit on a lot of university committees as well and make sure that student voices are visible and represented,” she explained.
“There are many different ways that students are being impacted and it's often now the situation for students to have to pick between having a meal and paying rent or paying for their commute to college. It's just not sustainable for students,” she added.