Students from across the country march from Parnell Square to Merrion Square in Dublin to demand the Government use its €65bn 'rainy day' fund to tackle the student accommodation crisis and soaring cost of going to college. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill
“We’ll never have the opportunity to engage in anything. The minute that this [protest] is done, we’re going to have to get back in our cars and go home,” he added. Julie Stroemple , from Cleveland in the United States and studying political science at Trinity College, spends three hours commuting to college from Maynooth every day. “[It] affects my studies and my mental health as well.”
Grace Lavin , a fourth-year architecture student at TUD, pays €1,000 for her rented accomodation in Dublin – a cost that is “completely unsustainable” as a student, she said, walking along Eden Quay. Students have marched to Dáil Éireann to demand that the Government uses the €65 billion budget surplus ‘rainy day’ fund to tackle the accommodation crisis.