Couch surfing and sleeping in cars: the realities facing English language students in Ireland

Some students have swapped Ireland for Malta, while others are relying on hostels due to the lack of accommodation in Ireland

English language student Sebastian Carvallo Farina at Belgrave Place on Wellington Rd in Cork near where he and others had to sleep on the street last weekend. Picture: Dan Linehan

When Sebastian Carvallo Farina recently came to Cork to study English, he was looking forward to an exciting time in a new city far away from his homeland of Chile.

The civil industrial engineer has found a whole different world, however: one of rough sleeping and couch surfing in between stints in hostels, when they are not full.

Just this week, he has been sleeping on a friend’s couch until he can return to the hostel where he mainly sleeps.

But in recent weeks, Sebastian has had occasion to sleep on the city’s streets because he could not find rental accommodation or hostels.

He is one of the thousands of people who come to Ireland every year to learn English from countries outside of the EU. And he is just one of several such students who have told the Irish Examiner in recent weeks of how difficult it is to find accommodation while they are here.

One woman currently studying in Dublin bought an old car recently for €800 to sleep in. Now, she has managed to secure a couch in a friend’s house.

Sebastian Carvallo Farina had to sleep outdoors in Cork last weekend. The engineer is one of many people who came to Ireland to study English who are finding it difficult to secure accommodation. Picture: Dan Linehan

For Sebastian, his stay in his friend’s house is limited to just a few nights until he can return to the hostel again — he is in a spiral of trying to keep a roof over his head. He says that each weekend is difficult because tourists have booked the accommodation which Sebastian and others like him are living in during the weeks.

He adds: “In the weekends, there are no rooms.”

He says workers and students are coming to cities like Cork and “then find it difficult to carry out their activities normally because they cannot find accommodation”.

He adds: “The other thing is that people are charging a lot for rent.”

Paul Brian, an Argentinean who came here in December, has been frustrated in trying to find somewhere permanent to stay. He is a student in Dublin and has been sleeping in different places since December.

He says he is shocked by the number of people looking for rental properties. He says: 

“Behind me, there are thousands of people literally killing to have the same room that I am looking for... and living this experience is horrible because the chance of being able to obtain the room is very few.”

In recent weeks, Paul has been staying with a person who saw his pleas on Facebook for somewhere to stay and who offered him a place for a few weeks, until he finds somewhere more permanent.

But he says he finds it so hard to get a viewing because of the high number of people all looking for rental accommodation in Dublin. He says: 

I honestly didn’t know before I came that it was like that. 

“My experience so far is very bad," he says. "My first idea was to study English in the UK but Brexit ended that idea. And Ireland is the only country in the EU who speaks English and I had to come here, and the truth is I am not happy here. But I need to learn English. It is a country that has disappointed me.”

As well as searching through traditional rental websites, Paul has turned to social media in his search but is disillusioned by the high numbers of scammers he has come across through this route. He says he is lucky to not have been duped by them.

Paul believes the Government needs to halt giving out visas to students coming to Ireland to learn English.

Departments respond

A spokesman for the Department of Further Education said: “This issue has not been raised with the department. The provision of English language education in Ireland is principally a private sector activity and the department does not have a role in accommodation for English language students.”

The spokesperson subsequently redirected the Irish Examiner’s queries to the Department of Housing.

According to the Department of Justice, international students who enrol on an English language programme listed on the interim list of eligible programmes must register for a stamp 2 immigration permission which is valid for up to eight months. To qualify, they must enrol on a programme lasting at least 25 weeks, attend class for at least 15 hours a week, attend at least 85% of their classes, and complete an end-of-programme exam.

The department says it does not collate figures per course type. But according to its most recent statistics, 11,747 visas were granted last year for courses including secondary level, English language, and third level up to and including PhD. This was up from 7,821 in 2020, when such courses were heavily hit by the pandemic.

In 2019, the year prior to the pandemic, 17,217 such visas were granted.

Up to the end of March this year, there were 2,662 such visas granted.

Owner and director of the Atlas English language school in Dublin, Nico Dowling, says the accommodation issue is putting big pressure on the language schools this year.

He says: “A lot of our students are staying with families now whereas they would normally be moving out into apartments and other accommodation. So while we have the families, they are not freeing up enough to rotate to bring new students in.”

And he says students who postponed because of the pandemic are now also here taking up the places in schools that they had paid for but could not take up, adding to the demand for accommodation.

Dowling says he is not aware of any students attending his school who have ended up sleeping rough. But he says a small number of students at the Dublin Atlas school have swapped to its sister school in Malta because of the accommodation issues in Ireland, while others have opted to finish their courses early because they cannot find anywhere to stay.

Atlas is seeking more host families to come forward to help accommodate English language students —
particularly for its summer programmes.

Dowling says that already, the school has taken the decision to limit its intake of students for the six-week summer programmes because of the lack of accommodation in Dublin, from around 500 to 300 per course.

He explains: “We don’t want to end up in a situation where we can’t accommodate students so we have had to cap for our summer programmes.”

“We are aware of the increasing costs for families now which is another reason why it is so hard to get host families. What is going to happen is that next year, schools will probably increase their prices to pay the families more. What was a huge seller for English language schools in Ireland was our host families because they are so welcoming.”

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On Friday, the Department of Housing provided information on the first full operational quarter of the new Housing First National Implementation Plan 2022-2026, aimed at providing the most vulnerable in the homeless population with a home for life as well as with key wraparound health and social supports. According to the data, 58 new supported tenancies commenced in the first quarter of 2022.

A spokesman told the Irish Examiner: “The Government’s Housing for All plan is focused on tackling supply and affordability issues in the rental market. The plan contains targets, actions and guaranteed State investment of over €4bn a year in housing aimed at increasing supply, which in turn will help increase access to affordable rental housing for all those that need it.”

He said a number of measures have been introduced with the objective of improving security of tenure for tenants under the Residential Tenancies Acts.

“This includes strengthened rent pressure zones that now cap rent increases at 2% per year when inflation is higher. Under the Residential Tenancies (Amendment) Act 2021, all new tenancies created on or after June 11, 2022, will become tenancies of unlimited duration after six consecutive months in occupation under the tenancy, without a valid notice of termination having been served.”