A young Donegal man may have to sleep in his car due to the lack of accommodation near his college, a local councillor reports.
The young man has been in a dire search for a place to stay in Cork, where he hopes to attend college in September.
But with no suitable places available in the wider county, or in surrounding counties, he may be forced to sleep rough.
Councillor Micheal Mac Giolla Easbuig said he was contacted by the man’s mother seeking urgent help.
“She was trying everything as she really wants her son to have an education,” Cllr Mac Giolla Easbuig said.
Cllr Mac Giolla Easbuig said the woman, who does not want to be named, was very upset when she called him. She and her son had searched counties within an hour’s drive of the college, to no avail.
The student accommodation shortage is a complex situation in cities and towns across Ireland, but Cllr Mac Giolla Easbuig said there are immediate and long-term solutions.
“We need to move to regulate Airbnb and we need to look at the properties that are not in productive use and the state need to move to do compulsory orders,” he told Donegal Daily.
“I define these ‘holiday houses’ as homes that are empty, where people only come home every couple of years or two or three times a year. They are houses that might be left to family members or where people have been forced to move abroad. A holiday home is different.”
“We have a lot of holiday houses here that aren’t in productive use, yet we have people who are homeless, students looking to be educated, people being offered employment in our communities but can’t take it because they can’t get a place to live. If the owners of the empty houses aren’t willing to put them into use, we need to do a compulsory order on them.”
Cllr Mac Giolla Easbuig added another solution he sees is that “the ideology of the government must be forced to change, or we need a change of government.
“After buying into capitalism, we don’t see the State now as a vehicle to provide needed services. We see the private market as that vehicle to profit and that allows the market to dictate the cost of housing and control what is built. Unless we look at the real cost of it we are never going to rectify it.
“The government has allowed the private market to dictate solely in the interest of profit for the landlords.”
Cllr Mac Giolla Easbuig said he shared the local mother’s plea online in the hope of finding a contact in the Cork area. If anyone wishes to help, they can contact via Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/micheal.macgiollaeasbuig/posts/pfbid02BvdW9kzbLn1azzTZJDzU74XaSu5Yg3ijboGu2K59xL3Sk54gcy4cmNkpn1gnHe9sl
