By Kevin Dowling
For international students, starting a new chapter in their lives and moving to a new country to study, is usually a time filled with excitement.
Unfortunately, those who have chosen a college in Galway face one big problem: finding accommodation.
Many third-level students make the decision to go abroad to further pursue their education. Before travelling and planning their stay, they only see the positive aspects of living and studying in Ireland. However, most of them have now discovered the sad reality of the Irish housing crisis.
Searching for accommodation online
Many foreign students have said that it is very hard, if not impossible, to find student accommodation online on housing websites like Daft.ie, and housing pages on social media. Between false information and no replies, students were left stranded with no roof over their heads for their future student life in Galway.
Baptiste Goussot, a French student on his Erasmus year at the University of Galway, said that it was difficult to find a place to stay in the city.
“When I first had the opportunity to look for accommodation, I was on the waiting list for the University’s student residence, so I decided to look on various different websites,” he said.
“I went on Daft.ie, Studentpad, and some student residences’ websites, but it was always the same answers that came back when I applied: ‘The offer is not available anymore, other students have taken the room’.”
Baptiste then decided to search on Facebook for student and housing groups. However, it still remained a very difficult task for him, especially due to the amount of fake announcements.
Scams
Baptiste explained to the Galway Pulse team how he got scammed by a fake landlord.
“The scammer asked me to pay the deposit upfront before signing anything,” he explained.
“He looked convincing, he sent an ID that looked similar to the Facebook profile and because after months of searching, I didn’t find anything, I just paid the deposit.
“It was once we arrived to visit that we realised we got scammed as the landlord wasn’t there and the house did not look like the photos he sent us online.”
University support
It was thanks to the University of Galway’s Accommodation Advisory Service (AAS) that Baptiste found his accommodation. “The next day [the day after the scam visit], I went to the Accommodation Advisory Service’s office in a desperate attempt to find a place to live,” he said.
“They managed to find me student accommodation near the city centre.”
A large cohort of students are in the same situation as Baptiste and have credited the AAS with helping them eventually source accommodation.
Expensive rent
Many students already find it challenging to source accommodation in Galway but, in addition to that, they will often have to spend a lot of money once they do find housing. Once the international students found a place to stay, they were mostly all shocked by the excessive prices of rent in Ireland.
Paolo Mazzini, an Italian University of Galway student, explained: “It is quite expensive for what it is. I pay €675 per month and I only have one private room and I share the rest of the house with six other roommates.”
For Baptiste, his rent is even higher at €1,000 per month, but he said that he can understand the price because the landlords “don’t have a choice” and they fix the cost of rent depending on “the market price”.
International students ‘deserve better’
The University of Galway’s Student Union president, Dean Kenny, said international students who come to study in Ireland deserve better.
“It’s the international students…who have been absolutely scammed, with unsuitable accommodation, with digs that they have no protection in whatsoever,” he said.
“These international students are paying up to €20,000 a year in their student contribution and tuition fees, and then they get problems when they come over here with visas, with rent, and the cost of living crisis.
“These people deserve better from this University.”