The University of Galway is being urged to develop its own property on Nuns Island as student accommodation instead of going to the private market.
Local election candidate for PBP Adrian Curran said that the university leasing 242 private bed spaces is a “symptom of how broken our housing system is”.
He was responding to reports in the Galway City Tribune that the University of Galway is looking to lease private accommodation for students.
Curran compared this to the HAP system, adding that “public money going into private landlord pockets with no long-term benefit to society” is a result of the refusal to build state student accommodation.
“This reliance on the broken private housing sector cannot be the long-term plan. The University owns practically an entire neighbourhood of vacant buildings in Nuns’ Island that should have been developed years ago as student accommodation,” Mr Curran said.
“Bringing the empty buildings they already own back into use as affordable student accommodation could revitalise the Nuns’ Island area, provide much needed beds for students, free up space in Galway’s private rental sector, and provide a long term income stream”.
These rents could then be reinvested by the university instead of being swallowed up by private shareholders, he added.
The University of Galway has for several years been working on long term plans for a €200 million redevelopment of a 15 acre site on Nuns Island.
In 2019 the university announced that work had begun on a masterplan for the area, which would also involve the relocation of the Bish.
The development will be paid for by a mixture of state funding, private investment, and the university’s own resources.
However, the plans are still in very early stages despite the time which has passed since then.
