Irish Examiner view: Find a better way for student living

UCC student accommodation under construction at the site of the former Crow's Nest in Cork. Institutions should work together on a new vision for student living beyond the city fringes. Photo: Larry Cummins

When the Munster Technological University (MTU) was formally established the Cork region could, if it were boastful, brag that it was home to a second university. 

This is a concentration of opportunity and expertise unimaginable half a lifetime ago. Those deep wells will consolidate the commitment to third-level education that enriches so many lives, Irish or otherwise, in this Republic.

That process has been underway for decades. UCC has more than 21,000 students, MTU 18,000, some in Tralee. That means around 40,000 need accommodation close to those institutions. That figure is augmented by Cork University Hospital staff. 

Commercial growth, particularly in the hi-tech sphere, adds to demand. Those numbers are more than twice the population of Wexford town and three times that of Killarney. Just as every cloud has a silver lining success stories come with a price. Those numbers seeking a bed exact it.

The suburbs close to these institutions have been changed utterly to provide student accommodation. Some neighbourhoods have been cannibalised, mature communities have been turned into dormitories. 

Sustainable social settings where different generations mixed and supported each other have been upended. People who could once afford to rent or buy in these areas no longer can. 

This desertification accelerates every time a property with potential comes to market despite the strengthening prospect of remote learning and work. That continued last week when An Bord Pleanála approved plans to demolish the building that was home to the Kino cinema on Cork’s Washington Street. It joins a long list of sites earmarked to house students.

Students are not to blame for this colonisation but those institutions are not blameless even if they will insist that their primary objectives are academic. Covid-19 has forced the acceleration of new ways of learning. 

In a world where a blend of online and physical attendance is the future and in a country afflicted by Children’s Hospital syndrome — far too late, far too expensive and in the wrong place — these institutions should work together on a new vision for student living beyond the city fringes and the commuter link it would demand to prevent the destruction of suburban neighbourhoods.