As part of an upcoming proposal set to be approved by the Cabinet on Tuesday, there will be an increase of 1,000 student housing spaces distributed among three separate universities. Patrick O’Donovan, the Minister for Higher Education, has prepared a memo for the Cabinet that outlines future strategies for boosting student housing, aided by a generous “windfall” from the National Development Plan valued at €100 million.
Taoiseach Simon Harris has expressed his desire to address the lack of housing for students and to eliminate obstacles that interfere with education. The government memo that is going to the Cabinet includes a plan to establish 1,014 student lodging units tailored for students across three universities, such as 493 units in UCD, 405 in DCU, and 116 in Maynooth University.
Approximately one-third of this new student housing will be reserved for recipients of SUSI grants or students who hail from low-income households. Construction is anticipated to commence in DCU and Maynooth University this year, while the construction in UCD is predicted to embark in the early part of 2025.
Additionally, a memo from Roderic O’Gorman, Minister for Children, is expected to speed up plans that would earn childminders recognition for registration with Tusla, and permit them to benefit from existing childminding subsidies. Any childminders who have not registered with Tusla, the child and family agency, will be ineligible for the childminding scheme. While there is currently no centralised registration system for childminders who are generally employed in domestic settings, about 15,000 childminders are estimated to be working in Ireland.
Government insiders anticipate that Minister O’Gorman might expedite the part of the legislation that looks after registration issues and not present the entire bill addressing wider problems.
Ahead of the meeting, Minister for Finance Michael McGrath is slated to bring forth the 2024 Stability Programme Update (SPU) that provides an overview of the economic situation. The SPU’s release essentially marks the commencement of the process for Budget 2025. Non-governmental stakeholders will soon have their chance to contribute their opinions at the National Economic Dialogue event, and this will be followed by a Summer Economic Statement.
Lastly, the Department of Taoiseach will provide an update on the Government’s Housing For All initiative. This follows conversations amongst Ministers earlier in the year where they were made aware that an additional 120,000 homes would likely be necessary by 2030.
At a Cabinet committee assembly, it was revealed to the ministers that the population forecast, which was earlier predicted to hit 5.7 million by 2040, might be realised a decade earlier. The latest predictions from the Economic and Social Research Institute indicate a possible surge of over 300,000 individuals by 2030, higher than initially expected. This rise in population might lead to the need for approximately 120,000 additional dwellings, only to cater to the demands of the year 2030.