'Can't stay weekends' - Galway rents leading to struggles

RTÉ News​

15-05-2025

Students and residents in Galway have been outlining their struggles with paying high amounts of rent for accomodation in the city.
The Residential Tenancies Board has warned of "concerning trends" of rental inflation in Galway that need further investigation.
Callum Phelan and Jake O'Brien are students living in an six-room apartment in Galway city. Their landlord lets out the accommodation to tourists at the weekends, meaning those living there during the week can only stay there from Monday to Friday.
"It can fit nine in the house. There's a bunk bed, there's a room with two beds, and then there's single rooms. It's €800 a month, so it would be about €4,000 a month, Monday to Friday. We can't stay weekends," said Mr Phelan.
"You have to pay extra (if you want to stay at weekends) ... it's not good. It's been like that the whole time, since first year. This is my third year now, and it has always been fairly steep. I know lads paying €250 a week. It's expensive.
"In the rooms, there's just a bed. There are no wardrobes or anything, so I just have everything out of my suitcase," he added.
"I share a room with someone, so I'm paying €600 a month. Having to leave at the weekends is a joke," said Mr O'Brien.
"I don't think there's enough accommodation for students that cheap enough anyway, with the cost-of-living prices going up ... But even if we're not there, we have to pay. I had two weeks off for Easter, and we still had to pay €150 for the week, even if we're not using the accommodation," he added.
Another student, Nicole Bukovska, is currently searching for accommodation with four others.
"We were looking at prices that were maybe, €1,000 a month or something like that, and that's just for one person. So, it's all over the place," she said.
"It's an awful lot, because we are all students as well. It's quite hard. We're in student accommodation at the moment, and we pay €747 a month for a small, little room. Next year, that same accommodation is going to go up to around €900 a month, so it's really hard."
'Impossible' to find somewhere below €800 a month
Lorcan Boulcer believes he is lucky to be paying reasonably affordable rent in Galway city.
"It seems to be the last place in Galway that rent is affordable," he said, speaking of his own case.
"I know the climate, I hear it from my friends every day. There's a couple of us looking for a house for one of our new colleagues. It's impossible to get anywhere below €800 or €900 a month, it's ridiculous."
"How much is €800 or €900 a month out of an average wage? It's an arm and a leg. Really, you're in vast amounts of shared accommodation where you could be sharing with up to six people ... What are we supposed to do? There's no discretionary income anymore. Every single cent that you make seems to go to somebody, before you even get to decide what to spend it on yourself," he added.
"Rents in Galway seem to be matching the rents in Dublin, and rents in Dublin are more expensive than rents in London, which is ridiculous. That wasn't the case a couple of years ago. When my sister went to college here, rents were between €300 and €400 a month. Now, it's €600, €650 for a shared room," said another resident, Dagda Semler.
"It's not just rents within the city, it's rents in smaller places outside of the city as well. They just keep rising continuously."
Regulation needed for short-term lets
Housing activist Fionnuala Doyle Wade says the blame lies at the feet of the Government.
"The main problem that I would see as an activist and someone that's involved in housing activism is that locals are being pushed out due to short-term lets. There's a huge amount of tourism coming into the city. That's important, we need tourism, but they should not be taking up entire homes," she said.
"There's such a short stock, and we're prioritising people coming in for a short time period. We have people coming in who are here for maybe a week or two, living in whole houses, and locals not able to find accommodation with really expensive rents, living in hostels because they can't find anywhere to live. It's a huge problem with students, also with refugees and asylum seekers.
"The Government hasn't done their job or due diligence in terms of building enough housing, but also in terms of regulating short-term lets and looking at vacant properties. We have thousands and thousands of vacant properties in this country that are sitting empty. People need to be put into them," added Ms Doyle Wade.