Autumn and the release of Leaving Cert results and the anticipation of third level places through the CAO has brought the by-now ritual protests by student unions over the lack of accommodation, the cost of accommodation, and the quality of accommodation available to those who have to live away from home.
There has even been a proposal that people who have “spare” rooms might have students stay. UCD Students Union have been leafletting DART stations and elsewhere as part of their ‘Digs Drive’ reminding punters that they might earn up to €14,000 a year if they take in a student.
What none of the student spokespersons have done, no more than any of the others complaining about this or the overall shortage and cost of accommodation, is to mention the Elephant in the Corner of mass immigration.
Which is the single major factor in housing demand and in housing costs. And is the direct single most reason why student accommodation grows ever more scarce and more expensive.
Anyone who cannot see this is either innumerate or chooses to ignore it because it contradicts their ideological and dogmatic belief that all immigration is the best thing ever, even when it harms their own interests.
The student unions here are a perfect example of this. Not only is support for state and corporate immigration policy an article of faith, but they continue to call for more overseas students to be allowed to come on terms disadvantageous to Irish students.
Where do they imagine they are all going to stay? Whose CAO places are they going to take? This is not quantum physics people.
Leaving aside entirely the general issue of accommodation shortages, the vast expansion of numbers of overseas students here – who obviously require somewhere to live – is a specific sectoral factor that is reducing the availability of accommodation to Irish students.
According to EU statistics overseas students made up 12% of the total of students in third level education here in 2023. The exact number was 30,105. The EU figure was based on a total of 242,740 students in tertiary education here.
That number had increased to 40,400 in 2024 according to figures provided by the Higher Education Authority (HEA.) Which would mean that over 15% of 265,905 third level students in 2024 were from overseas. The EU average in 2023 was 8.4%.
Neither the EU figure for 2023 nor the HEA figure for the academic year 2023/24 includes the 128,300 students who English Education Ireland claimed were enrolled in English language courses here in 2023. Which entirely skews the figure for people in the state who are enrolled in education courses broadly defined as ‘post Leaving Cert.’
WHERE DO THEY COME FROM?
The breakdown of where students come from also indicates that the Irish state differs radically from the EU norms. While the EU average for students from other member states was 43%, the figure for Ireland was 30%. 70% of foreign students were from outside of Europe, a figure only surpassed by France and Portugal both with a long history of colonialism in Africa.
25% of tertiary level students in the EU as a whole were from Asia but the Irish system had the highest proportion of Asian students of any other EU state at 45% in 2023.
Indian and Chinese students at 7,070 and 4,405 respectively accounted for the vast bulk of Asian students in 2024. There is an obvious connection between that and recruitment into the tech sector as many of the students stay.
An interesting aspect of the issuing of student visas is that while 61,000 were granted to non-European students in 2024, this is significantly greater than the number of students from outside of the EU who enrolled in specifically ‘third level’ courses, but less than half of those enrolled in all education courses here.
There is therefore no exact figure on the number of Stamp 2 student visas that are granted to people who enrol in an English language course. The criteria for these courses is that they must be ‘full time’ (defined as at least 15 hours per week on courses that last for 25 weeks or more), and that the student attends 85% of classes and completes an exam at the end.
How strictly all of that is enforced is nowhere indicated officially. It is certainly clear that many of the more than 100,000 language students and probably a significant number of third level students are working, sometimes as technically ‘self-employed’ delivery riders. Others work in the hospitality sector.
This is a factor which may in fact reduce the need for work permits to be applied for in some sectors. That is noticeable in the slight decrease in the number of permits issues to the end of July and there is little doubt that if there are almost 130,000 ‘language students’ who are allowed work that it is much less trouble to employ them in the more informal low paying sectors than it is to go through the process of applying for a work permit with the Department of Employment.
A web site that specialises in “linking international students with education providers worldwide” advertises that “Getting a student visa for Ireland is easy.” There is a 96% acceptance rate and the visa process is “fairly simple.” The company places strong emphasis on the fact that students with Stamp 2 permission have easy access to work.
The companies that provide the classes – such as Delfin which reported net assets of €2.6 million in 2024 and ATC with net assets of more than €3 million – do very well from the language student business. As do companies who can employ students on Stamp 2 visas on officially part time contracts or even informally.
The more established third level institutions including the main universities also benefit as students from outside of the EU/EEA pay around twice the annual fees of citizens of EU/EEA states.
ASYLUM ACCOMODATION
There has been some recent mainstream questioning of how all of this operates. Sinn Féin TD for Cavan-Monaghan Matt Carthy who has baulked the party’s left liberal line on immigration voiced his concerns to the Mail on Sunday.
Carthy had been given the figures cited above for student visas and remarked that “at a time when there is a student accommodation crisis clearly happening, the Government should be very vigilant in how these schemes are managed.”
McCarthy, at least in this regard, is seemingly ahead of the curve compared to the cohort of students who polls would indicate lean strongly towards Sinn Féin.
One solution to the student accommodation crisis might be the greater availability of ‘digs’ in larger centres with set rates and in an atmosphere that is safer for the many students staying away from home for the first time.
One of the reasons why this has not taken place is that former student accommodation was changed over to use as asylum accommodation. That had become such a concern at the beginning of the 2023/24 term that the State had to introduce a protocol that student accommodation had to be vacant for a year prior to any exemption being granted.
There has, however, been no trend of asylum accommodation reverting to student accommodation. Nor is there likely to be. In that instance the wing and a prayer of hoping for access to private homes remains an option.
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