NUIG buildings idle in a homeless crisis is wrong

Bradley Bytes – a sort of political column with Dara Bradley

You’d have to wonder what sort of social conscience and moral compass guides NUI Galway.

During the biggest housing shortages and homeless crisis that this country has ever experienced, the university has sat on prime city centre property that’s effectively been idle and underused for years.

NUIG students and staff must experience pangs of guilt – by association – when they walk by empty buildings at Nuns’ Island and later, as they pass rough sleepers in sleeping bags in doorways of businesses on Shop Street.

NUIG’s primary function, of course, is education. But the university does have a wider responsibility, too.

It’s not like NUIG – or GMIT, for that matter – is a passive bystander in the housing mess. In fact, increasing student numbers, including those from overseas, (particularly lucrative from the university’s perspective) push up rents for others struggling to keep a roof over their heads.

Of course, NUIG has long-term plans for Nuns’ Island. And even its own ‘masterplan’ for the area identifies the problem – it highlights four buildings, three-six storeys tall, including at Gaol Road, which are “currently underutilised and falling into disrepair”.

It could do more in the interim, though. NUIG could convert those near-empty buildings into student digs in the short-to-medium-term, to increase supply and ease pressure during an unprecedented housing shortage.

Yes, NUIG can and will argue that it has contributed to new housing stock in recent years to cater for student demand. That is not in dispute.

But NUIG should not go unchallenged over its buildings lying idle while people are homeless and sleeping rough more than ever before.

Last week, Galway Simon, the homeless charity, said the rate of new affordable housing coming on stream was inadequate to sate demand. Numbers of single adults seeking emergency accommodation during the pandemic have increased.

Simon expects a rise in homelessness once the Covid-19 moratorium on evictions is lifted. It’s going to get worse, basically.

City Councillors are often critical of the Corrib Great Southern Hotel site being idle, but there are others hiding in plain sight.

Who knows when – or even if – the NUIG master plan will be implemented? In the meantime, it could put its idle buildings to use in a national emergency.
For more Bradley Bytes, see this week’s Galway City Tribune. You can buy a digital edition HERE.