Crisis in Dublin leaves students homeless

"Only the other week we dealt with a German student who was here studying science, and who was sleeping in a tent on the N4. That's what we mean by accommodation crisis."

Ross O'Daly is president of the Dublin Institute of Technology, with 4,000 students, and he knows about the city's student accommodation crisis. For weeks now the media have been littered with horror stories from students in search of decent, affordable accommodation. In Dublin the situation is at its worst. With many colleges starting next Monday, hundreds of students are still roaming the streets trying to find somewhere to live. `It's mayhem. Some of the flats are very grotty," says Elaine O'Hanlon, a second-year music student at UCD from Arklow, Co Wicklow.

Fiona Kenny is the students' union accommodation officer at UCD. "Last year we had two cases of students sleeping rough. This year there are even more looking for accommodation, and an actual decrease in the sort of accommodation students can afford, so who knows what we'll be faced with next."

In six years the number of students in the State has increased by 10,000. This year college places for 36,000 first years were taken up. Up to 60 per cent of students in Dublin are looking for accommodation. As the Government makes more college places available each year, the figures are set to increase.

Then there is the substantial decrease in affordable accommodation. Fintan McNamara is the information officer with the Irish Property Owners' Association, which provides an advisory service to landlords. "Earlier this year the Government implemented a number of measures which have effectively choked off all investment buying. As a result, the amount of rented accommodation needed to meet the increased demand isn't nearly adequate."

He said, "New tax initiatives mean that landlords who had units which could accommodate up to 10 people are now deciding to sell up." Bought by home-owners, they now house "families of three or four".

Since 1996 landlords have been obliged to register each unit in a house. At £40 per unit, registration is costing some landlords up to £400 a year. "We had a decrease in the number of units being registered this year," says Mr McNamara. "In other words, landlords are selling up because it isn't worth their while renting out flats any more. The only area which makes sense to be involved in is increasingly the luxury end of the market. We are very concerned that the situation for students is simply going to get worse and worse every year."

Indeed, given the clamour for rented accommodation, it is hardly surprising that some rents have increased by up to 20 per cent in the past year alone.

In Dublin it now costs on average £50 a week for a bedsit, a one-bedroom flat costs around £450 per month and a two-bedroom flat could easily set you back up to £700 a month. According to Mr O'Daly, "in order to pay their rent, we have cases of up to six students cramming into a two-bedroom flat this year".

Students' unions throughout the country are up in arms against what they see as the paltry maintenance grant of £45.90 a week. It "doesn't even pay the rent, never mind bills, food, and course costs like books," says Ms Kenny. "In the past 10 years there has hardly been an increase in the maintenance grant at all, meanwhile, rents have almost tripled. Lower-income families are being priced out of going to college."

Some students are being forced to turn down college places in Dublin and take up a course they are less interested in nearer home. Others are opting to live at home and commute for up to three hours a day.,

"Realistically, the grant needs to increase to about £70 a week," says Mr O'Daly. "People gripe about taxpayers paying for student handouts, but we're talking about an investment here. Students leave college and get good jobs which are worth a return of more than 9 per cent to the economy."

The Union of Students of Ireland, which represents 150,000 students, has been calling for a solution to the student housing crisis for years. According to Siobhan Fearon, welfare officer with USI, "This year is the worst ever; students are waiting in queues for hours on end only to find themselves looking at barely affordable squalor. The story is always the same. Either the accommodation is too expensive, or it just isn't liveable in."

Earlier this month USI set up a 24-hour soup kitchen and advice centre in Dublin for students and their parents and clocked up about 10 distraught queries an hour.

"There is an urgent need for more on-campus accommodation," says Ms Fearon. "We also need an immediate review of the issues surrounding the current crisis, and effective measures to control rents, which have escalated beyond the average student's means."