The Optus Glean promise: predictability
Three pillars. Three commitments. No exceptions.
Predictable cost. One fixed monthly fee, set against a defined scope and an annual indexed review. No variable hours. No surprise invoices. No padded callout charges. Budgeted once, paid by Direct Debit, reviewed once a year.
Predictable presence. The site is cleaned every day it is meant to be cleaned. A named primary cleaner is rostered to your contract, supported by a named relief who is already vetted, inducted, and trained on the same colour-coded system and IPC standard. The schedule does not depend on whether one person is available on one day.
Predictable freedom. A single point of accountability. One contract. One named manager. One number to call. Cleaning is no longer a problem the site has to manage — it is a service that runs.
Why cleaning in Ireland is structurally hard to get right
Most cleaning provision in Ireland — including in healthcare-adjacent settings — is delivered by a workforce that is structurally part-time and casual. A significant proportion of operatives across the sector also work as healthcare assistants in nursing homes, residential care, and acute hospitals. Cleaning shifts are typically taken when healthcare shifts are not available, and released when they are. This pattern is consistent with CSO labour data on accommodation, food, and administrative-support employment, and it is the underlying reason that buyers across Ireland encounter inconsistency from agencies they have contracted in good faith.
The pattern is reinforced by two background pressures specific to Ireland. Housing affordability limits the catchment for any role paying at or near the minimum wage. The Contract Cleaning Employment Regulation Order rate of €14.80 per hour for 2026, set under the Labour Court's sectoral employment framework, sits close enough to flexible care-sector pay that operatives drift toward whichever shift pays slightly more on the day. Both pressures pull cleaning staff away from contracted shifts and toward casual healthcare work.
The result, from the buyer's perspective, is the experience most practice managers, facilities leads, and procurement officers in Ireland describe: a clean that is half-completed when the contracted cleaner is available, missed entirely when they are not, and accompanied by recurring conversations with the agency about cover that may or may not arrive.
This is the structural problem Optus Glean is built to solve. Our operatives are fully PAYE-employed with guaranteed weekly hours, paid leave, and pension contributions under Irish auto-enrolment. They are paid above the ERO floor deliberately — because the structural reliability of the service depends on the cleaner choosing to remain in the role rather than rotating through casual healthcare shifts. A named primary cleaner is assigned to your site, supported by a named relief, both Garda-vetted and trained to Optus Glean's documented HIQA-aligned IPC standard.
Ireland's Growing Student Accommodation Market
Ireland has over 47,600 purpose-built student accommodation (PBSA) bed spaces across the country, with that number growing every year as new developments come on stream in Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick, and regional university towns. The sector is dominated by professional operators — Yugo, Aparto (Hines), Canvas (Greystar), Mezzino, and MCP — who manage large-scale residences requiring institutional-grade cleaning and facilities services.
Alongside private PBSA operators, Irish universities maintain significant accommodation portfolios. Trinity College Dublin, University College Dublin, Dublin City University, University of Limerick, University College Cork, University of Galway, and Maynooth University all operate student residences that need professional cleaning during term time and comprehensive turnaround cleaning between academic years.
Student accommodation cleaning is different from standard residential or hotel cleaning. The buildings are occupied by thousands of young adults for 9 to 10 months of the year, then vacated entirely for a compressed summer turnaround window during which every unit must be deep cleaned, inventoried, and prepared for the next intake. The cleaning partner needs to deliver consistent communal area cleaning during term time and then mobilise at scale for the summer turnaround — often turning around hundreds of units in 4 to 8 weeks.
Summer Turnaround Cleaning
The summer turnaround is the single most important cleaning event in the student accommodation calendar. Every unit must be converted from end-of-term condition — which, after 9 months of student occupation, can be challenging — to new-tenant-ready condition. The turnaround typically runs from mid-May to mid-August, with exact dates driven by academic calendars and summer conference bookings.
An Optus Glean summer turnaround includes:
- Full deep clean of all bedrooms, en-suites, and shared bathrooms
- Kitchen deep clean: all appliances inside and out, worktops, cupboards, floors
- Sanitisation of all touch points, handles, switches, and surfaces
- Internal window cleaning throughout
- Carpet cleaning (extraction) or hard floor scrub and seal
- Inventory check and damage reporting with photographic evidence
- Laundry of all bed linen, towels, and mattress protectors
- Mattress deep clean and sanitisation
- Coordination with maintenance for touch-up painting and repairs
Turnaround Pricing
Student accommodation turnaround cleaning in Ireland is priced per unit, with rates varying by unit type, condition, and total site volume.
| Unit Type | Price Range (2026) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Studio / en-suite bedroom | €150 – €200 | Deep clean, sanitise, inventory |
| Cluster flat (4–6 bed) | €200 – €300 | Includes shared kitchen & bathroom |
| Apartment (2–3 bed) | €250 – €350 | Full apartment turnaround |
| Carpet cleaning (per unit) | €40 – €80 | Hot water extraction |
| Linen laundry (per unit) | €15 – €25 | Wash, dry, fold, return |
Volume discounts apply for sites with 100+ units. Sites that bundle turnaround cleaning with term-time communal area cleaning and laundry services under a single annual contract receive preferential rates across all three service lines.
Term-Time Communal Area Cleaning
During the academic year, PBSA and university residences need consistent daily cleaning of communal areas. These are high-traffic environments with young residents, and standards need to be maintained to protect the operator's reputation, support resident satisfaction, and comply with health and safety obligations.
Optus Glean provides scheduled communal area cleaning covering:
- Lobbies, reception areas, and entrance halls — daily
- Corridors, stairwells, and lifts — daily
- Shared kitchens and dining areas — daily or twice daily
- Laundry rooms — daily
- Study rooms and computer labs — 3 to 5 times per week
- Gyms and fitness rooms — daily
- Common rooms and social spaces — daily
- External areas, bin stores, and car parks — weekly
- Window cleaning (external) — quarterly
PBSA Operators We Serve
Optus Glean is structured to serve both private PBSA operators and university accommodation offices. The operators and institutions we target include:
- Yugo — One of the largest PBSA operators in Ireland with properties in Dublin, Cork, and Galway
- Aparto (Hines) — Premium student accommodation in Dublin with high-specification residences
- Canvas (Greystar) — Multiple Dublin locations including Christchurch, Rathmines, and Portobello
- Mezzino — Student accommodation with a focus on service quality and resident experience
- MCP — Multi-site PBSA operator with properties across Ireland
- Trinity College Dublin — On-campus accommodation including Trinity Halls (Dartry)
- University College Dublin — Belfield campus residences and Blackrock accommodation
- Dublin City University — Glasnevin campus residences
- University of Limerick — One of the largest on-campus accommodation portfolios in Ireland
- University College Cork — Campus accommodation and affiliated residences
- University of Galway — Corrib Village and campus residences
- Maynooth University — Campus accommodation in North and South Campus
Scale Capability
Student accommodation turnarounds demand the ability to deploy large teams at short notice and maintain quality across hundreds of units in compressed timeframes. A 500-unit PBSA scheme needs to be turned around in 4 to 6 weeks, which means processing 15 to 25 units per day with consistent quality on every single one.
Optus Glean manages this through structured team deployment: dedicated site supervisors, unit-by-unit quality checklists, photographic sign-off on every completed unit, and real-time progress tracking. We do not rely on ad-hoc agency workers who have never seen the site before. Our turnaround teams are trained, inducted, and managed by supervisors who understand the specific requirements of each PBSA operator's standards and specifications.
Integrated Laundry Service
Most student accommodation operators need a laundry partner for the summer turnaround — hundreds of sets of bed linen, towels, and mattress protectors to be washed, dried, folded, and returned to units in time for the new intake. Optus Glean provides this as an integrated service, combining commercial laundry with turnaround cleaning under a single contract. This eliminates the coordination overhead of managing separate cleaning and laundry providers and ensures clean linen is delivered directly to units as they are prepared.
Related Services
- Student Accommodation Cleaning — Full service page with detailed specifications
- Commercial Laundry & Linen Services — Integrated laundry for PBSA turnarounds
- Carpet & Floor Cleaning — Extraction cleaning for student bedrooms
- End-of-Tenancy Cleaning — Individual unit turnarounds
Frequently asked questions
How much does student accommodation cleaning cost in Ireland in 2026?
A PBSA or university halls scheme is priced as a fixed monthly fee tied to the contracted scope: daily communal-area programme during term, summer turnover cleans, scheduled deep cleans, and out-of-hours incident response. The Contract Cleaning ERO 2026 sets a €14.80/hour labour floor, but reputable providers quote the contract on a multi-year term with an annual indexed review and a single monthly Direct Debit.
What standards apply to student accommodation cleaning in Ireland?
The Housing Standards for Rented Houses Regulations 2019 set the minimum standard for the accommodation itself; RTB oversees the tenancy regime; local authority housing inspectors enforce against both. Cleaning programmes must support compliance with these standards across communal areas (corridors, kitchens, laundries, study rooms, lifts) and back the operator's own room-condition reports at turnover.
How does summer turnover cleaning work?
Summer turnover is the annual reset between academic years — typically a six-to-ten-week window when student rooms, kitchens, and bathrooms are deep-cleaned, fabric inspected, and rooms returned to letting standard. A reputable provider plans turnover capacity months in advance, usually with a named lead and a uplift in PAYE-employed crew. In Ireland, larger PBSA schemes typically need 200-600 rooms reset before September arrivals.
What's the difference between PAYE and casual cleaning contracts in student accommodation?
A PAYE-employed cleaner is on payroll with the company that signs the contract, paid above the Contract Cleaning ERO €14.80/hour floor, with guaranteed hours, paid leave, and PRSI/pension through the employer. A casual or self-employed operative is none of those things. PAYE staffing is the only model that holds capacity through summer turnover without scrambling for casuals — and the only model that produces a recognisable named cleaner for residents to interact with through the year.
How is 24/7 incident response handled?
A reputable contract covers same-night response to spillages, vomit, blood, broken glass, and biohazard incidents in communal areas, with documented chemical regime and SDS, and a logged response time. The cleaning provider should hold an on-call rota of named PAYE-employed responders, not a phone tree of casuals.
How do I evaluate a cleaning provider for student accommodation?
Three checks. One: are the operatives PAYE-employed by the company that signs the contract, or subcontracted via labour agencies? Two: who is the named site lead and what is their relief plan? Three: does the provider have a documented summer turnover capacity plan, with named crew uplift, that they can execute without putting the September letting calendar at risk?
What should be in a cleaning contract for student accommodation?
A communal-area programme with frequencies per zone, a summer turnover plan and capacity commitment, an out-of-hours incident response SLA, a named site lead, the chemical regime with SDS, PAYE-employed staff confirmation, fixed monthly fee, annual indexed review, and a clean exit clause. No per-hour pricing. No "summer turnover quoted separately" sleight of hand.
Who handles biohazard clean-ups at a student accommodation site?
Routine biohazard clean-ups in communal areas (vomit, blood, broken glass) sit with the cleaning provider under a documented method statement, validated chemical regime, and operative training. Clinical-waste streams (sharps, syringes found in waste rooms) are handled by a licensed healthcare-waste contractor under the Waste Management Acts 1996-2023, not by the cleaner. The cleaning provider's role is environmental cleaning and immediate reporting.
How Optus Glean handles staff shortages
Every Optus Glean contract is staffed on a redundancy model rather than a single-person model. A named primary cleaner is assigned to the site at contract start. A named relief is assigned alongside them. Both are PAYE-employed by Optus Glean, both are Garda-vetted, both are inducted on the site's specific layout, access protocols, and colour-coded equipment system, and both are trained to the same documented HIQA-aligned IPC standard. Substitution is built into the contract from the first day, not arranged on the day cover is needed.
Sick day cover. When the primary cleaner is unable to work, the named relief is deployed. The site site contact is notified by 06:30 on the morning of the absence by SMS or email, with the name of the relief who is attending. The relief follows the same task list, uses the same equipment, and finishes within the same window. The standard of clean is unchanged because the relief was prepared for this scenario before the absence happened.
Annual leave cover. Annual leave is rostered weeks in advance and the relief is scheduled to cover the full leave period. The site is informed at the start of the leave period — not on the morning leave begins. This is the same model used in clinical rota management: known absences are pre-staffed, not improvised.
Long-term cover. If the primary cleaner is absent for more than two weeks (extended illness, parental leave, bereavement leave), cover is drawn from the wider trained bench rather than relying on the single named relief. The site is kept informed of the cover plan, the named individuals involved, and the expected duration. Continuity of standard is maintained because every operative on the bench is trained to the same documented standard.
Permanent reassignment. If the primary cleaner moves to a new permanent role within Optus Glean — promotion, relocation, retirement — the relief is promoted to primary on a planned timetable, a new relief is trained on the site, and both are introduced to the site before the handover takes effect. There is no day on which the site discovers, after the fact, that their cleaner has changed.
Substitution is Optus Glean's operational problem, not the site's risk to absorb. The buyer pays a fixed monthly fee for a defined scope to be delivered, every day it is meant to be delivered. The mechanism by which we deliver it — primary, relief, bench, retraining — is our cost to manage and our risk to carry.
Last reviewed: 2026-05-06