‘We kept being asked to pay deposits before even viewing the house’: Mayo students speak out about housing crisis
Finding student accommodation is more difficult than ever before. With limited availability, soaring rents, and endless scams, the process is not only stressful and exhausting for students, but it has become a major barrier to accessing higher education.
Aoibhin Doherty, a 19-year-old from Foxford, County Mayo, is a second-year student studying Public Health and Nutrition at ATU Galway. She knows first hand how difficult it is for students in Ireland to secure accommodation.
Transferring from ATU St. Angelas in Sligo last year, she experienced a housing system where accommodation was both hard to find, and expensive to afford. Aoibhin recalls paying a €750 deposit and around €5,500 for the year, for a twin room with a shared bathroom in Sligo. Her experience with landlords was also stressful.
“The landlord was very strict. We weren’t allowed visitors at all, not even our parents after they helped us move in. I couldn’t invite friends over because I feared losing my accommodation.” At one point, she found herself living alone for weeks while her housemates went on placement, which left her feeling isolated.
Aoibhin didn’t know until July whether her transfer to ATU Galway had been accepted, and once confirmed, she began the stressful search for housing.
“When we went to look at student accommodation, they told us everything had been booked up since March,” Aoibhin explained. She began to search online, contacting estate agents, and joining Facebook housing groups, but the process was exhausting: “Every day we were checking Daft.ie, emailing over 25 places and getting only a couple of responses.”
Aoibhin and her friends also encountered scams on Facebook, with fake listings demanding deposits before viewings. “I came across about five scams from just one group. It was so stressful, and you couldn’t relax over the summer with the constant worry about finding a place.”
Eventually, Aoibhin and her friends managed to secure a three-bedroom townhouse in Galway for €3,100 a month: “At first, we couldn’t afford it, but the owners said we could turn two of the rooms into twin rooms, and have five people living there for the same price. We said we would take that because we didn’t really have many other options.”
After a stressful search, Aoibhin and her friends thought they were sorted and began to look forward to returning to university life, however, the accommodation was pulled out from under their feet.
“Just over a week ago, they actually said the owners said they wanted to keep the house as a holiday home, so we lost our accommodation that we thought we’d had. We were then back searching,” she explained.
Aoibhin began searching Facebook for housing but was met with scam after scam, including one case where the same house was advertised from two different profiles: “We kept getting asked to pay deposits before even viewing the house, with no contracts either, they would just send photos of the house,
"I showed my friend some pictures of a house being advertised, and she said she had contacted a man the day before who showed her the exact same photos. The two profiles had nothing in common, but they were using the exact same photos to scam people.”
In an attempt to find any sort of housing, Aoibhin travelled to Galway last week, calling into all the estate agents and student accommodations: “We got a phone call back from one of the student accommodations, but it was €258 a week for a single room. I just straight up had to say no.”
After days of searching, Aoibhin secured a twin room through a Facebook group. She now shares a three-bedroom house with five other students, she said the house was lovely, but pointed out that her room has minimal space, shared storage facilities, and no desk. The room costs €600 per person, €1,200 in total. To put this into context, the average monthly rent for a two-bedroom house in Galway City is €1,751.
“We were kind of just grateful to take anything,” she said, “I am very lucky that I have somewhere, but it was a big stress to find it. I’d get my own single room if I went into digs, but I needed to be with students because that’s what I was missing last year.”
She explained the emotional strain: “It’s the financial stress of it all, it’s a big mental battle, it was really tough. It felt like the summer was almost ruined because you’re constantly on your phone, trying to find somewhere. You’re emailing and texting people, just praying they’ll get back to you.”
Aoibhin is far from alone. Heidi O’Grady is a 20-year-old nursing student from Clare Island, County Mayo. She is entering her second year of study at University of Galway, and is also struggling to find accommodation in the city.
“Trying to find somewhere to live has been almost impossible,” she explained, “Like many others, I applied for every student accommodation available, only to be put so far down the waiting lists that I had no chance.”
With a first semester that will include six weeks of placement in Ballinasloe, Heidi had hoped to live in Galway and commute by public transport: “The prices being asked are shocking. Landlords advertise their rooms as ‘affordable,’ but the reality is very different. I was asked to pay €187 per week for a shared room, not including bills, and expected to pay cash with no lease to sign.”
Living on an island off the west coast of Mayo means that commuting from home is not an option for Heidi: “This has left me in a very awkward situation, and I know many others are in the same position.”
She emphasized that the accommodation crisis is more than an inconvenience: “It’s a serious barrier to education and training, especially for those of us entering essential professions like nursing. For some students, the stress and cost could even force them to drop out of college altogether.”
Paddy Marnane, the Student Welfare and Equality Officer at University of Galway, noted the wider context of the student housing crisis: “The Students' Union stance is one of disappointment with the current government's efforts in relation to student housing,
“We have experienced a serial lack of investment in purpose-built student accommodation over the last number of years, forcing students to turn to the private rental market, where they have to compete with working professionals for housing. Similarly, students are now competing with Airbnb as many landlords are now favouring Airbnb over renting to students.”
This article has been funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.