About 30 student leaders are due to end an overnight protest outside Leinster House this morning, in a move aimed at highlighting the shortage of student accommodation around the State.
Yesterday, the Union of Students in Ireland (USI) president, Richard Morrisroe, invited Ministers and TDs from all parties to "pitch their tents" alongside the protesters in support of USI proposals for a student accommodation taskforce.
However, Mr Morrisroe said that, while many politicians had voiced their support for the campaign, there had been little interest in spending the night camping outside with the students. "They are very happy to ask questions in the Dáil on the issue, but they don't seem to want to camp out," he said. "It's a pity. I was looking forward to getting to know some of them better."
He said the recent slowdown in the property market meant that more people were now renting rather than buying property. This, combined with an increase in the number of immigrant workers renting traditional student accommodation, meant that the lack of student accommodation had reached a "critical level at a critical time".
"Students are sleeping outside in the cold to represent new levels of desperation in the student accommodation morass," he said. "After months of Government inaction, a new college term is now imminent. The accommodation quagmire is about to usher in a new degree in misery."
Mr Morrisroe said the Green Party had made an election pledge to enter discussions with the USI on the establishment of a student accommodation taskforce. He called on Green Party leader and Minister for the Environment John Gormley to "urgently implement" this pledge. Any such taskforce should include voluntary and statutory agencies, he added.
A spokesman for the Department of the Environment said the USI had not sought a meeting with Mr Gormley. In his role as Minister, Mr Gormley would be looking at all areas relating to housing and accommodation provision, and would be "glad" to meet the union to discuss the issues raised, he added.
Meanwhile, the president of the Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland (ASTI), Patricia Wroe, yesterday said "urgent steps" needed to be taken to reduce class sizes in maths. A recent ASTI survey showed that 15 per cent of third-year students are in maths classes of 30 pupils or more, and another 35 per cent are in classes of 25 to 30 students.