Politics

Student: ‘Rent is a big issue among students’

Meet the Voters: Maedbh Donaldson says her friends ‘emigrated because they wanted to’

Maedbh Donaldson: ‘A lot of young people aren’t looking for jobs in Ireland and are emigrating because they want to.’
Thu Feb 11 2016 - 01:31

[ Meet the Voters series ]

I'm in second year media studies in NUI Maynooth, studying Spanish as well. I'm probably your typical student where if it's an interesting debate then I'm interested.

The marriage referendum was a huge thing everyone was into. I was pretty opinionated on it but I’m not that interested in party political stuff.

I live in Maynooth with my mam. My sister is a radiographer in England, where she went to college. I’ve been working since I was 16 and I’m quite independent in that sense. Right now I have two part time jobs.

Perhaps I am naive but I don’t think there are many problems in Maynooth. One could be anti-social behaviour.

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Things that affect young people now and in the future would spark our interest in this election: mainly employment or emigration.

Parties interested in increasing employment, particularly for younger people starting out, would be of interest to us.

There is nothing I can see that is majorly wrong with the country. I know there’s a huge issue with employment and young people emigrating.

But I think part of it is that a lot of young people aren’t looking for jobs in Ireland and are emigrating because they want to.

I know 10 or 15 people who emigrated because they wanted to. It is not that the work isn’t here. They wanted to move away. I don’t know anyone who was forced to leave.

Rent is a big issue among students. A lot of my friends moved out of Maynooth and some of the rent prices are just crazy.

In Maynooth rent prices are just going up and up. I’ll probably end up working in Dublin if I do get work.

I have transport links here and I would be 100 per cent happy to commute to Dublin because I know rents are really high. I would not see the point in moving out.

If there was an election in the morning I’d probably vote for Fine Gael. And whoever my mum votes for I’d probably go along with that. If they have the most seats in parliament they’re obviously doing something right.

Constituency: Kildare North

Maedbh Donaldson was in conversation with Dan Griffin

[ irishtimes.com/election-2016/meet-the-voters ]