A decision will be made by next Tuesday on whether to extend the rent tax credit to parents who pay for rented accommodation for children attending third-level, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar has said.
He said Minister for Finance Paschal Donohoe “is examining whether it’s possible” as he faced accusations of an “abject failure” to stand up for students and provide accommodation.
Mr Varadkar was responding to Sinn Féin higher education spokeswoman Rose Conway-Walsh, who highlighted a protest by third-level students who walked out of college on Thursday morning at 11.11 am because “they are at their wits’ end”.
She said that time reflected the 11 years the Tánaiste and his Fine Gael party had been in Government. She said for three budgets in a row there had been a failure to provide funding for student accommodation.
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Mr Varadkar said they were “listening to the voices of the students who are protesting” and insisted the Government is helping students in four ways with the cost of living.
“Students want their voices heard, by protesting today. They’re making sure that their voices are heard, and their voices will be heard in this House and by this Government.”
Desperately needed
They were “cutting the student fee by €1,000, increasing the student grant, reducing the cost of public transport by up to 50 per cent and building more purpose-built student accommodation which is desperately needed as you rightly point out”.
Raising the issue at leaders’ questions, Ms Conway-Walsh spoke of a final year student commuting six hours daily from Co Offaly to get to UCD. She quoted the student, who said ‘I am weary, I am in my final year but I cannot face it. I’m deferring’.
Others are travelling from as far as Longford or sleeping on sofas or in their cars, she said.
The Mayo TD said a PhD researcher had explained that €1,000 out of their €1,500 monthly stipend goes towards accommodation and this left them eating beans on toast for all their meals. The researcher had said their mental health had been severely impact and they were considering quitting the programme and leaving Ireland, she said.
Ms Conway-Walsh said “the housing crisis your Government has caused is devastating people’s lives and impacting on student education”.
Unfairly excluded
She also said “students and parents must be recognised as renters like all others. Yet they’re being unfairly excluded from the rent tax rebate”. She called for them to be eligible for the €500 tax credit for renters.
Replying, the Tánaiste said “we acknowledge that in many cases students don’t earn enough to pay income tax and their parents are paying the rent for them”.
He said Mr Donohoe is examining “whether it’s possible to extend the rent tax credit to parents who pay student fees on behalf of their children. We hope we can do that. Sometimes these things are easier promised than done. But we hope we can do that”.
He said they would know by next Tuesday when the Finance Bill comes before the Cabinet. He also said that Minister for Higher Education Simon Harris “has the authority of Government to take the lead” on student accommodation with Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien.
Mr Varadkar said there are hundreds of student accommodation places under construction, including a 600-unit development in the University of Galway. He said Mr Harris “is putting together a financial package to help unlock student accommodation developments where permission is granted but they can’t proceed because they’re not financially viable”.
