The Union of Students in Ireland is holding a demonstration in Dublin tonight calling on Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan to introduce a deposit protection scheme for people renting properties.
Members of the organisation have pitched more than 20 tents outside the Department of the Environment on Custom House Quay and plan to stay there for the night in an effort to highlight some of the problems students are having with their accommodation.
Landlords were using students' deposits as income rather than as insurance policy so that the terms of the lease would be complied with, the union said.
It found that more than 60 per cent of students had in excess of €200 unfairly withheld from their deposits and of those, 40 per cent got back none of the money to which they were entitled.
Students were paying deposits as high as €1,000 and landlords appeared to be using the money to pay mortgages instead of retaining it for eventual return to tenants, said union president Gary Redmond.
He said the Government should establish a deposit protection scheme, where the deposit is held by an independent agency such as the Private Residential Tenancies Board, protecting students from unlawful actions of some landlords.
Mr Redmond said that similar schemes were in operation in the UK and New Zealand.
The UK model offers two options with landlords either handing the deposit over to a third party like the Private Residential Tenancies Board to keep or taking up an insurance scheme which pays out if there is a dispute between landlord and tenant.
The average students will pay at least €3,500 rent over the duration of the academic year, he said.
A spokesman for the Department of the Environment said Minister of State Willie Penrose had asked the Private Residential Tenancies Board to examine the idea of a deposit retention scheme and that he was awaiting their response on the matter.
