Green Party Minister Roderic O’Gorman has confirmed that some student accommodation sites will continue to house Ukrainian refugees even into September during the next college term.
As reported by Midlands103, O’Gorman made the comments in reply to Independent Laois-Offaly TD Carol Nolan.
Irish universities first began supplying as many as 4,500 beds to Ukrainian refugees back in May of this year. This arrangement was said to be on a temporary-basis during the summer months, and the government made assurances that student beds “won’t be impacted.”
“While the Department can confirm that student accommodation is being offered to displaced Ukrainian people for the summer period, this will not impact on the supply for students for the forthcoming academic year,” said a Department spokesperson in a statement to the Journal.ie at the time.
Minister Roderic O’Gorman said at that time that this would not be used as a long-term solution.
Responding to the new development this week, Carol Nolan TD said that she believes this will put strain on students seeking accomodation, and that the government are “burying their heads in the sand” regarding the issue.
“I’m very mindful of the fact that students will already be under severe strain following the announcement last week that the Leaving Cert results will not be released until early-September,” she said.
“And the last thing they need is to have the student accommodation market reduced further, and have further problems due to the lack of accomodation available to them.”