This morning, the UCD Students’ Union – in association with the Trinity College Students’ Union as well as Daft.ie – announced a new unified advertising campaign to help promote student digs in Dublin. The campaign, which will see advertising rolled out to websites such as DoneDeal.ie and Adverts.ie, aims to encourage Dublin homeowners to rent out rooms in for student living. The three organisations note that, under Irish law, homeowners do not have to pay tax on income earned from renting to students up to an annual cap of €12,000.
The advertising campaign itself will include personal experience of students who have stayed in digs through blog post testimonials.
UCDSU President Conor Viscardi as well as TCDSU president Kieran McNulty have released a statement alongside the campaign noting that “digs are a student-specific area of the housing market that can help resolve the issue of supply.” The two presidents are aiming to utilise tax incentives and schemes in order to alleviate demand for student accommodation in the short term.
They state that “we might be able to create a couple of hundred new bed spaces for students in a matter of weeks rather than years.” They wish to get “a positive message out there” to homeowners who have any apprehensions about student tenants.
Speaking to the University Observer, UCDSU President Conor Viscardi placed some credit with last years’ SU sabbatical team. Stating that the SU were “building on their efforts” he noted that the current team “[brought] in the new sabbatical team from Trinity and expanded the project.”
Viscardi sees this partnership with the TCDSU as “very important” before clarifying that “they have contributed towards half the cost of this project and they share our view of digs being under-developed as a student specific area of the housing market.” The two unions’ collective goal, is to “provide more bed spaces for the thousands of young people trying to find college accommodation in Dublin.”
The campaign comes following a Higher Education Authority report last year that would see a huge gap in the amount of accommodation provided for students. A number of reports outlined rising student numbers, alongside a lack of investment in student accommodation.
On campus accommodation in UCD has risen by 7% each year over the last two years.
Advertisements