ATU Mayo to partake in national walk-out amid student accommodation crisis

Students at ATU Mayo and third-level institutions nationwide will take part in a walk-out this coming Thursday, October 17.

This comes amid an ongoing student accommodation crisis, which has left over 24,000 third level students homeless in Ireland.

Speaking to The Mayo News, Student Union (SU) Vice President, Christina McGuinness, said they are looking to cause ‘ a bit of ruckus’.

“From 11.30am we are all protesting basically outside the front campus and causing a bit of a ruckus, because we asked a lot of the government in the USI, the Student's Union of Ireland, manifesto to them, and we were promised the earth, the moon and the stars, and we got nothing.”

Commenting on the €1,000 reduction of college fees in the recent Budget, Ms McGuinness said it was  ‘far from enough’ on the ‘list of things’ needed. 

_{Student Union Vice President, Christina McGuinness}

“We need more protections for students that are living in DIGG’s as they're not protected enough. It's great that students are coming in and people are allowing them to come in, but they're not protected enough; they could literally get told tomorrow ‘right, out I changed my mind’ and they have absolutely nowhere to go. Unfortunately I’ve seen that far too many times in the last couple of weeks, and it's nothing the student does, it's just not working for the landlord, and again, I'm not undermining how difficult it is for someone to bring someone in,” continued Ms McGuinness.

“We have Hawthorn Village just outside the town here and even now I'm not allowed to call them student accommodation, I could say they prioritise students because there's so many other different communities in there, I mean I believe everybody needs housing, no matter where you're from, but they need to build affordable student accommodation, and they need to do it now. 

“There's empty buildings up and down the town and I just look at them, and it makes me physically sick to think that nothing has been done there. I mentioned there about the Student Contribution Charge, they just need to abolish that, it's a shambles, it's a mess, it's stress on top of stress, they don't need it,” she added.

A group of 29 students, and Ms McGuinness recently took part in Focus Ireland’s ‘Shine A Light’ sleep outs to raise awareness for homelessness in Ireland.

While explaining the many helps and services needed from the government, Ms McGuinness said the general election needed to happen ‘yesterday’.

“In terms of counselling, we have an incredible counsellor here on campus, she's just one person, we have 700 students. 

“We're about week four, week five, and I have had at least two serious student welfare issues every week, so, if that doesn't say they need more support, I don't know what does. 

“We need more funding from the government to increase the counsellor to student ratios, because there's not enough counsellors, there's just not. The ones that are there are doing absolutely incredible and really valuable work, but as I said, we have one,” she commented.

Ms McGuinness was elected as SU Vice President at ATU Mayo in March as she was studying Applied Social Care.

“I came in as a mature student, it was very daunting. I was like, ‘oh my God, I'm going to absolutely drown here in this’, and to say I love my time here at ATU is just absolutely the biggest understatement in the world.

“We're a massive community, we all genuinely look after each other, and I think that was a massive part in why I decided to run,” said Ms McGuinness.

She concluded: “On a personal level, I had my little boy just before I started second year, so that was crazy, and I continued all my studies and I wouldn't have been able to do that without the support of the lecturers and the program board and everything else, I genuinely, wouldn’t be on the phone to you today if it wasn’t for them.”