Cork TD calls for more accommodation for technological universities 

A Cork Labour senator has called for the Government to provide student accommodation for technological universities (TUs) like MTU.

Laura Harmon, the party’s spokesperson on further and higher education, said that out of 106,000 students attending technological universities in Ireland, there is on-campus accommodation available to a mere 0.4%.

She told The Echo: “Cork has the lowest proportion of purpose-built student accommodation of any city in Ireland with just 18% of overall student accommodation. MTU does not have any accommodation of its own for students and we see the effects of this in traffic congestion in the city.”

Speaking to representatives from these universities in the joint-oireachtas committee on further and higher education, she said: “It’s very clear to me that you as presidents of these institutions not only have the will to solve this problem but also the clear-cut solutions.”

She said that recent advancements made to TUs which saw them merge, as CIT and its Kerry counterpart did into MTU, should have accounted for the demand for housing.

MTU president Professor Maggie Cusack said many students and their families see housing as the number one issue in relation to third-level access.

 She said: “It seems, at the minute, when students and families are looking at college courses, the first thing they consider is ‘where am I going to live and how am I going to get there’? This should not have to be the case.

“To provide sufficient accommodation for students we need to have a proper borrowing mechanism in place for universities. Collaboration on this issue between the Department of Housing and the Department of Further and Higher Education is vital moving forward.”

She has called on the Government to prioritise a solution-based approach to student housing, saying: “We need to see the provision of publicly owned housing for students included in the upcoming student accommodation strategy to 2035.”