Student housing rents in Cork to shoot up due to ‘bottleneck’

With rents as high as €900 per month, Students Unions are urging the Government to increase student supports

Ian Rathmell from UCD, during a protest last year. A lack of available accommodation for students continues. Picture: Gareth Chaney/Collins

A surge in demand for student accommodation in Cork in the coming weeks, will see students paying hundreds of euro more than they have budgeted for, according to University College Cork Students’ Union (UCCSU).

As college students return for another academic year, a “bottleneck” will leave many students paying “extortionate” prices for accommodation, according to  UCCSU welfare officer Alannah O’Connor.

“It definitely feels like there’s no beds because everybody is looking at the same time,” she said.

"What tends to happen is by the end of October everything will settle down, and everyone has a room, but a lot of people are having to pay hundreds over what they were originally expected to pay."

Ms O’Connor said there is a lot of purpose-built student accommodation in Cork, but much of it remains too expensive for many students. 

Prices of “upwards of €900 per month… isn’t really feasible for many people”, she said.

 “To put that into perspective, your full-rate Susi grant is €625.”

It will be more difficult for first-year students to get accommodation as they begin classes about two weeks later than the remainder of undergraduates, who start on September 12, she said.

UCCSU has a food bank for students who cannot afford groceries, and the union expects it to remain in demand this coming semester.

Student experience at risk

Meanwhile, University College Dublin Students’ Union (UCDSU) officers leafleted commuters at peak hours in the morning and evening, encouraging them to rent a room out to a student on ucdaccommodationpad.ie.

The union said students’ on-campus experience is “at risk” and the “failure of successive governments to address the issue” has created a “higher education catastrophe”.

“We are urgently appealing to homeowners to consider housing a UCD student under the rent-a-room relief scheme ahead of this academic year,” said UCDSU president Molly Greenough.

The union will pay for a courier to drop more than 20,000 leaflets to houses in the areas surrounding UCD in the coming weeks, in the hope that some homeowners will rent a spare room and ease the pressure on supply.

UCDSU also reiterated the call for a “meaningful cut” to be made to the student contribution charge. It said: 

Putting money directly back into the pockets of students and their families represents the most appropriate emergency measure.

“A cut of just €500 would only cover about a fortnight’s rent with an overwhelming majority of purpose-built student accommodation providers.

”We would like to see the Minister go much further and make a meaningful cut, allowing students to decide for themselves how to make the best of a really bad situation.”