Homeowners urged to rent a room to students to ease accommodation crisis

Homeowners have been urged to help ease the student accommodation crisis by renting out a room and in turn benefit from a generous tax break. 

The Minister for Further and Higher Education Simon Harris has appealed to homeowners to consider renting rooms to students ahead of the start of the new academic year, in what he admitted is "a very challenging environment".

The Union of Students in Ireland previously stated that there is a student accommodation crisis, with many people who are due to start college in September struggling to secure a place to stay.

With Leaving Certificate results not being released until September 3 this year, the situation has been made further compounded. 

There have also been reports of some offers of accommodation being withdrawn in some areas of the country.

Simon Harris said there is "absolutely no doubt that there is a real housing supply issue".

He said everybody will have to do "everything we possibly can now to increase capacity now".

This includes promotion of the rent-a-room relief scheme, which he described as "an immediate practical measure" that colleges and local communities can help with immediately

Mr Harris said he believes "it's an attractive scheme for a homeowner who has a spare room, who can earn up to €14,000 a year without paying a cent in tax" or impacting social welfare benefits.

He added that the Government has made changes to make the scheme more attractive and "we're beginning to see the benefits".

Mr Harris said on Wednesday that using this scheme would not affect those receiving a SUSI grant, or social welfare, fuel allowance or the living alone allowance.

He said that long term, “we need to flip” the ratio of two-thirds private and one-third college-owned student accommodation, adding that he has received Cabinet approval for a ring-fenced fund to achieve this.