The PBSA Council of Ireland has warned the government that plans to prolong rent caps on purpose-built student accommodation for a further three years risk stalling the delivery of beds and deterring long-term investment in the sector.

The move, which would prevent rents from resetting to market levels until at least 2029, comes as universities face record domestic and international enrolment and with a shortage of dedicated student housing.

The council said it had spent recent months outlining the financial and operational pressures impacting operators and developers, and the consequences for new construction. It said any effort to improve affordability for students must be matched by a regulatory framework that provided investors with confidence and supported sustainable growth in supply.

Council Committee Member and GSA Global Head of Capital Markets John Jacobs said Ireland needed a rental system that protected students without undermining the viability of new schemes and warned that extending caps risked deterring capital “precisely when additional student accommodation is most urgently required."

Speaking at Bisnow’s Ireland Residential Investment And Development Conference 2025, held at the Aviva Stadium in November, Jacobs warned that Ireland was in danger of missing out on a major opportunity given the UK’s restrictions on overseas student visa numbers.

“With an English-speaking education system and with the issues in the UK, Ireland should be putting itself forward as an alternative location to study for a university degree, and yet the current rules are holding the opportunity back,” Jacobs said.

“In the past decade, we’ve seen 12 regulatory changes directly affecting student accommodation alone, with more anticipated in the new year. This constant uncertainty has shaken institutional confidence and contributed to a €14B investment shortfall, leaving us well behind the 68,000 new beds needed by 2035,” he said, adding that new bed supply had declined dramatically as a result of the regulatory environment.

Jacobs also called for more institutional investors from Ireland to look at real estate again, maintaining that the country could not expect international capital to fund all the necessary development.

The PBSA Council said it wanted to work with government on a “balanced outcome that improves affordability, rebuilds investor confidence and accelerates the pace of construction” and that holding rents on existing schemes below market benchmarks, without a route to repricing, would push institutional investors to the sidelines.