Flat-hunting was described by students and other people trying to find accommodation in Dublin yesterday as "a nightmare".
A call for an emergency finance Bill "to respond to the rented accommodation crises for students", was made by Mr Brian Hayes TD, Fine Gael spokesman on housing.
The introduction of the Finance Bill last April, he said, has caused rental charges on private accommodation to "sky rocket". "The irony of the Government's position is that while they boasted of more college places this year, they yet again have been derelict in their duty to address the accommodation needs of students and others on low and fixed incomes hoping to fill such places."
His claim that the Government's response to the Bacon Report has directly resulted in an increase in private sector rents, was rejected in a statement from the Department of the Environment and Local Government. "Any increase in rent levels is driven by wider market forces rather than the effects of the Finance (No 2) Act," the statement concluded. The Finance (No 2) Act, it explained, "did not affect existing investors in private rented accommodation. The Act removed investor incentives for private rented housing only in relation to investments made after April 23, 1988".
On Dublin city streets yesterday flat-hunters were much in evidence. They clutch a paper, they scan the street scape and they look harassed and worried. They form long queues that wind down from doorways in streets along villages such as Ranelagh and Rathmines.
Ms Elaine O'Hanlan was in Ranelagh at a pay-phone at 4.30 p.m. yesterday making yet another call. She's been travelling up from Arklow for the past two weeks with a friend trying to find a flat for two. "It's very disheartening," she said. "You arrive at a flat and it's been taken two or three hours beforehand, but no one is there to tell you so you queue for an hour or two until you realise it must be gone.
"It's mayhem. Some of the flats are very grotty. Others are fine but cost £50 or £60 per week which is too dear." She's a second-year music student at UCD.
At UCD, Mr Dermot Neilan and his daughter, Andrea, were smiling. They'd waited in Ballaghadereen, Co Roscommon, for the postman to arrive with the CAO offer of a college place yesterday morning. They left for Dublin immediately at about 9.20 a.m. They'd had the UCD students' union accommodation list sent on beforehand and they started ringing the numbers as they drove the 120 miles. "We brought a mobile phone with us," says Mr Neilan. "I based myself in the Stillorgan Shopping Centre. I made more than 30 calls. An awful lot of stuff was gone." By 4.15 p.m. yesterday afternoon however they had found a place - digs in Dundrum, at £75 for a full week, £60 for a five-day week, and they were both happy.
Ms Fiona Kenny, UCD's student union accommodation officer, says "it's really, really bad. Rent has tripled in the last couple of years. It's pricing lower-income families out of the chance of coming to college at all".