Lift ban on bedsits call to ease accommodation crisis

Lifting the ban on bedsits could help to alleviate the shortage of student accommodation in the city, which is causing rents to spiral.
Sinn Féin in Galway has called on Tánaiste Joan Burton to clarify the Government’s position on bedsits, which were banned two years ago.
Bedsits are self-contained one-roomed units of accommodation usually consisting of combined bedroom and sitting room with cooking facilities.
The new regulations introduced in February 2013 outlawed shared bathrooms and landlord controlled heating systems on rented properties.
The new rules effectively took hundreds of bedsits out of the student accommodation housing supply in the city overnight.
This, coupled with the dearth in new houses coming on stream in the city, as well as the ongoing demand for accommodation, has helped rents to soar in the city. According to the Private Residential Tenancies Board, rents in Galway are up 7% in the past year; and this is mirrored by the Daft rental report, which shows average rents in the city are €889, up 7.4%.
Senator Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (SF) said the housing problem in the city is at ‘crisis point’ and every possible solution needs to be explored to tackle it.
In December, the Tánaiste said Government would look at lifting the ban on bedsits and Senator Ó Clochartaigh has called for clarity.
“There is a need for the Government to give clarity on bedsits, and a lifting of the ban may be part of the solution to increasing the housing supply,” he said.
He met with student leaders last week who outlined the desperate situation students are finding themselves in, and the annual students’ race for rental properties hasn’t fully commenced yet.
“Students are so desperate to find accommodation in Galway that they are going around house to house in estates near the two third level colleges and they are dropping leaflets in letterboxes, which ask householders if they have a spare room to rent for the academic year.

For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune.