Thousands of condoms are being distributed to third-level students this week as part of a sexual health awareness campaign being run by the Union of Students in Ireland (USI).
The SHAG (Sexual Health Awareness & Guidance) campaign entails the distribution of packs that include condoms, sexual lubricants and information leaflets.
USI welfare officer, Tom Lowth
The distribution of the packs is part of a wider campaign aimed at raising sexual health awareness among students and encouraging them to practice safer sex.
Student welfare officers will be offering additional information as colleges around the State host SHAG week events. The slogan for the campaign is: 'Whoever you like... love safer sex'.
USI welfare officer Tom Lowth said: "Statistics clearly show that the message of safe sex is not getting through to the people who need the information most.
"Students [the 20-29 age group] are more likely to have higher number of sexual partners, change partners more frequently and engage in high-risk behaviour such as unprotected sex."
He said the USI would also continue to lobby Government for more funding of college health services, including screening for sexually transmitted diseases.
There has been a 175 per cent increase in reported STIs between 1994 and 2003 - 73 per cent of which was reported among people below 30.
Mr Louth also noted the College Lifestyle and Attitudinal National Survey in 2005 showed that almost three-quarters of all students were sexually active, and that availability and cost were reasons for the non-use of condoms.
Although 76 per cent of respondents said they used condoms, figures for 2004 show that over half of all reported STIs were among 20-29-year-olds.
Mr Louth said the Government and Department of Health were not taking the issue seriously enough and warned "the increases in cases of STIs will not be reversed unless urgent action is taken".
His warning comes as Britain's Department of Health considers distributing free testing kits for a range of sexually transmitted diseases that could be made available on the high street. The move follows a successful pilot scheme in which the high street chemist chain Boots gave away 6,000 testing kits for chlamydia.