The hundreds of students who crowded into the narrow lane beside the offices of the Galway Advertiser last Wednesday had one thing on their minds - to lay their hands on the newspaper's accommodation list. When the newspaper opened its doors at 3 p.m. they entered the office to snatch photocopies of the list, available a day before the paper goes on sale. Outside, some scanned rapidly down the columns as friends stood by with mobile phones, hoping to spot any available "des res" and contact the landlord before the rest.
Within 10 minutes the crowd had disappeared and new queues formed in front of every public telephone in the centre of Galway. For many it was a fruitless search. About 6,000 students want accommodation in Galway at the moment; some have been searching since late July or early August.
One of those in the queue, Ms Caitriona Blewitt from Ballina, Co Mayo, has been looking for a house to rent near University College Galway for the past two weeks. A third-year arts student, she hopes to share the house with three friends. "It's impossible to get anything. There have been girls up for the past two weeks looking. Nothing, absolutely nothing," she said.
"There are a lot of stories going around about people putting up the prices and just looking for professionals and not students. It's making it harder for us."
Mr Ronan Maher, a science student from Mullingar, Co Westmeath, was busy with his mobile phone and only had time for a quick comment. With four friends, he has been looking for a house to rent for the past two weeks. "We've been around all the estate agents, no joy there either," he said. "We had one [house] last week, but it was too expensive. They were looking for £40 a week each."
Ms Sinead Kilkenny, a research officer with the students' union in UCG, was handing out leaflets to the students. The leaflets, jointly produced by the two students' unions in UCG and Galway RTC, advise that the average rent in Galway is £25 to £40 a week for a single room, while those sharing accommodation in a house can expect to pay £20 to £30 a week.
The bilingual leaflets also give prospective tenants useful advice about their rights and a checklist of things to look for in a house or flat.
The unions printed the leaflets as a direct response to Galway's accommodation crisis, according to Ms Kilkenny.
"Over the past number of years we had a lot of students coming to us with complaints about landlords, deposits, that kind of thing. With the accommodation situation the way it is at the moment, we said `why not take advantage of it and let them know what it's all about?'."
She said it was becoming harder for students to find housing in Galway. Reasons for this included the city's rising student population and the increasing reluctance of landlords to let to them because of fears of noisy students.
"It's been the worst year ever," she said.
People in the accommodation offices at UCG and the RTC, however, offered a different view. The director of accommodation at UCG, Ms Margaret Faherty, said she had posted out 700 to 800 accommodation lists since the university offers were made last month.
Her message to students was simple: don't panic, something will turn up. "We have queues of them every day, and we tell them to relax," she said. "Everyone will be sorted out in the end."
Many of the 3,500 or so UCG students seeking accommodation had found places to stay by now, she said. "People are saying it's more difficult than it is. When you set in panic, the costs go up."
Part of the difficulty was caused by efforts to extend the tourism season. This meant that tourists still occupied some accommodation which traditionally became available to students around this time.
Some courses in UCG were beginning earlier than in previous years, and this increased the pressure on available accommodation.
Another factor was the rapid growth of the Boston Scientific plant in Galway, which now employs 1,200 people.
Some houses which had been available to students in the past had been taken off the list, for tax reasons or because of fears that landlords could be liable for prosecution over noisy tenants, under recent noise legislation.
Ms Faherty added that the boom in apartment building in Galway had little impact on students, as most new apartments were renting for about £100 a week and were beyond their reach.
A spokesman for the accommodation office in Galway RTC said the media had "hyped" the city's housing difficulties. It was not any more difficult to find accommodation than in previous years. "I don't see any major difference. `There are plenty of digs and self-catering accommodation available. Houses and flats, as always, are in short supply."