Almost 250,000 students at third-level institutions will start their academic year next month and for many finding accommodation will be a major challenge.
Mary Kate Lacey, a second year Arts student in University College Cork, has not secured anywhere to live, and come September will face up to six hours of a commute each day from Tralee to attend college.
She said she started looking for somewhere to live in March.
"You kind of have to be on from then, especially students who are not from Cork, you have to be on it quickly to make sure you have it," she said.
Ms Lacey applied for UCC student accommodation but did not get a place.
She also applied to several other privately owned student accommodation facilities across the city.
"I got one call back from one of them, I rang them back, it was 58 minutes later and the room was gone," she said.
"I know a lot of my friends all over the country, in Galway, Limerick, Dublin, they can't get accommodation anywhere."
Ms Lacey says having to commute will impact on her ability to focus on her studies.
Another student from Wexford looking to live near college in Limerick city, is planning to stay with a friend.
Jessica Murphy said without her friend offering a room until she finds her feet she would have nothing.
"I have been looking for accommodation since roughly last October, and I am still in a predicament where I have nowhere to stay," Ms Murphy said.
"It's just been so hard, there doesn't seem to be anything for anyone anymore."
The squeeze on accommodation also impacts students coming from abroad.
Maryna Pertsovych, who will be coming to Limerick on Erasmus from the west of Ukraine, said she sent over 20 emails on Daft.ie and then contacted another 40 people through the Mary Immaculate College accommodation office and someone got back to offer her accommodation but only for Monday to Friday.
She is arriving in Ireland next week and has nowhere to stay.
Michalina Baranska, is coming from Poland to Dublin for a course, and said she sent over 200 emails through Daft.ie, and only got four replies. Her budget is around €800 per month.
'Anxiety and extreme worry'
Student unions at various colleges are fielding most of the queries regarding accommodation.
Vice President and Welfare Officer at NUI Galway Student's Union Imogen O'Flaherty Falconer said there is almost no accommodation available, and where there is availability, it is too expensive.
"I have students coming to me expressing anxiety and extreme worry saying they might have to defer the year as they can't secure a place to live."
President of Dublin City University Student's Union Thomas O'Dowd said that most of the student accommodation is booked out.
"We're hearing of a lot of more students commuting long distances, so we're hearing students commuting from the likes of Galway," Mr O'Dowd said.
He said they run a digs portal in the student's union and have seen the number of available digs rooms decline.
However, this is the solution in the short term proposed by Minister for Further and Higher Education Simon Harris.
The 'rent-a-room' initiative has been promoted by the Government and Third Level institutions, where homeowners who have spare rooms could consider opening them up to college students and any income from that up to €14,000 per year is tax-free.
The minister also said that the colleges' accommodation offices have off-campus rooms still available; NUI Galway has 102 rooms available, University College Cork has 140 rooms.
The University of Limerick said it is aware of 125 rooms available currently off-campus through its accommodation office; 111 of those around UL are digs.
UL Provost and Deputy President Professor Shane Kilcommins said the rent-a-room initiative is one of a suite of measures that should be used to help students secure accommodation in the short-term.
He said the University of Limerick last year proposed changing single occupancy rooms to shared rooms, which would have created over 460 beds on campus, but the plan did not go ahead due to concerns from students.
While he said it is not the ideal solution, it would alleviate prices.
"It will be something that will have to be looked at again, not just in the University of Limerick, but all third level institutions," he said.
Prof Kilcommins also made the point that to build a complex with 460 beds would cost around €50 million and would take four years, when the current students will be gone.
"The paramount concern is welfare of our students, but it's also impacting in terms of longer commuting times for students, in some instances non-attendance in courses, it's also potentially going to impact on progression rates and attrition rates particularly if the attendance is not as high as it should be," he added.
"There is always the concern that students may not take up offers."
Concerns over digs
Union of Students in Ireland President Beth O'Reilly said they have concerns about digs-style accommodation.
"We're seeing a lot of places that would be the traditional digs set up where you have to go home at the weekends, that are charging the same as what you would pay for a room in a privately rented house," she said.
"We still don't have any rental protection for any of those students in digs.
"We know that building student accommodation will not happen overnight but protections for student renters absolutely can."
In terms of Ireland's current student housing stock, the Department of Further and Higher education said there are 14,500 bed spaces owned by higher education institutions.
That caters for around 5.8% of the Irish student population.
In a statement, the department said hundreds of additional beds will be made available this year by higher education institutions compared to last year.
A further 670 are expected later in 2023.
The number of beds in privately-owned purpose-built student accommodation between 2017 and 2021 increased by nearly 10,000 beds to over 12,000, and the department said there are a further 2,400 that have been granted planning permission.
