Almost a fifth of students at the University of Galway are living with family members or are in emergency accommodation, a new survey has found.
The questionnaire was conducted by the University of Galway students’ union. It took the views of 1,710 students through an online platform that was distributed over social media, in lecture halls and through email.
The 1,710 responses represent 8.5 per cent of the university’s population.
About 12 per cent of respondents reported living with family, while 5 per cent were living in temporary or emergency accommodation.
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The vast majority, 78 per cent, said they struggled to find accommodation, and 31 per cent said they would have reconsidered attending the university if they had known how difficult the accommodation crisis would be.
Two thirds of students paid more than €500 a month in rent and almost half (49 per cent) said they struggled to pay their rent.
More than half (56 per cent) said they received no funding to help with fees, but 24 per cent said they received the Student Universal Support Ireland (Susi) grant.
A majority said they worked part-time to afford their rent, while 56 per cent of this group said working part-time has negatively affected their education.
A quarter of those surveyed said they shared a room, and half of that cohort did not know the other occupant before moving in.
The students union called on the Government to invest in purpose-built student accommodation to alleviate the crisis.
“It is no longer satisfactory to depend on third-level institutions to build their own accommodation,” the union said.
Tom Forde, the students union’s vice-president for education, said a “lack of investment in purpose-built student accommodation leaves our 19,000 students at the mercy of the private rental market”.
“University of Galway only has 1,867 beds for these students, and as the market continues to dwindle, offering less accommodation with each passing week, our students suffer,” he said.
