Sort student accommodation for all – not just the rich elite

NUI Galway needs to build basic student accommodation that is affordable to all – instead of focusing on luxury complexes, where up to half of the places are taken by lucrative international students.

That’s according to Midlands Northwest MEP Chris MacManus, who said he had recently met with the NUIG Director of Internationalisation and Director of Global Galway, Dr Shazim Husayn – and the main issue that came up was the crisis in student accommodation.

This dire situation was only worsening all the time, which required swift action, he stressed.

“A new strategy is urgently required that puts affordability and public ownership at its heart. Better funding for our higher education facilities would allow them to build on-campus accommodation and offer more affordable rents,” he stated.

“The current government strategy is putting untold stress and expense on students and their families. Third level education should be a basic human right to any citizen. This government are squeezing out students through their failed policies. The unaffordability of accommodation is cultivating a new education elitism.

“There is an obvious over-reliance on the private sector and that approach is simply not working. That over reliance has delivered an inadequate amount of student accommodation at completely unaffordable rental prices.”

Four years ago, Fine Gael bring forward its National Student Accommodation Strategy, but the Sinn Féin MEP said that it had been a complete and utter failure.

His party’s spokesperson on Further and Higher Education Rose Conway-Walsh said the government claims it met its target of helping to create 7,000 additional student beds.

“This target was never capable of meeting the real student housing need. There are 24,000 students relying on the general private rental market that could not access student specific accommodation,” she said.

Under eight per cent of new student accommodation built since 2017 has been publicly owned, on-campus accommodation. This amounts to just 679 beds.

“On top of this, colleges increasingly give priority to fee-paying international students for on-campus accommodation in line with government policy. This has led to a situation where up to half of all on-campus student accommodation goes to the more lucrative international student,” said Ms Conway-Walsh.

NUIG Students’ Union vice president for education Clodagh McGivern said the accommodation crisis was the worst it has ever been this academic year following the creation of 4,600 new college places due to grade inflation as a result of the hybrid leaving cert.

Yet the college’s only response in many years has been to build the luxury Goldcrest Village with 429 ensuite bedrooms across 76 apartments where students must pay an average of €800 a month. It also has plans to build a third on-campus residential facility. The privately-owned Westwood complex charges in the region of €800 a month for single rooms.

“Students don’t care about gyms and cinema rooms. Right now in the middle of a crisis they need a roof over their head so they can get to college. Instead the only complexes being built are luxury ones where the fees are extortionate.

“Parents are so desperate they have no choice to pay these insane fees because of the dire market. At the beginning of the academic year, we had 200 students staying in hostels, we had some students sleeping in cars and campervans.

“We need student-purpose accommodation that is affordable, not luxury.”

The only other on-campus residence is Corrib Village that has 176 apartments accommodating 764 students.

There are eight privately-owned and managed student residences located off campus. These are Dúnáras, Gort na Coiribe,  Menlo Park Apartments, Donegan Court, Atlantis Apartments, Swuite, Galway Central and recently developed Westwood complex, which is already running a waiting list for the next academic year before CAO offers are even made.