“Honestly, I consider myself one of the lucky ones because my flatmates are really good, everyone’s clean,” says Dublin City University student Piyush Rajendra Jain.
He pays €650 per month in rent, and his apartment, which he shares with two others in Dublin 9, including his landlord, is conveniently located for getting to work and college.
The 27-year-old, originally from Mumbai, India, notes that he can get his groceries downstairs, and there is an Indian food store nearby.
These factors, alongside the €650 rent, “outweigh” the one negative, he says.
“I’m sharing my room with one person, in the same bed, which can be a nuisance at times.
“I did not want to share my bed with someone else, but it’s in a gated community, so it gives me a sense of comfort, and it’s 20 minutes from my workplace as well.
“There are so many plus points – this negative I can handle, and I knew the person I would be moving in with because he’s one of my classmates,” he says.
Piyush Jain said that while sharing his bed can be challenging at times, he and his roommate sometimes work different hours, meaning they do not share it every night. Photograph: Chris Maddaloni
Having moved to Ireland in January to pursue a master’s degree in business management, he initially lived in student accommodation, having begun the search “way in advance” after hearing about the reality of the housing crisis in Ireland from those who went before him.
He lasted in that apartment until May, he says, describing it as “terrible”. Due to a low energy rating, electricity and heating costs were unmanageable and the apartment was “cramped” and “mouldy”.
Jain says he was “shocked” by the cost of rent in Ireland, describing a “drastic difference” compared with his time spent in the United States. He moved to Buffalo in New York to do a master’s in robotics in 2021, before moving to San Francisco in 2023, a city that has long suffered its own housing crisis.
Despite a severe housing shortage and infamous rents, while working at a tech company there, he says his rent was about a third of his income.
He now works 20 hours per week at Dublin Airport, the maximum allowed as an international student, and despite sharing a double bed, more than half his pay is spent on rent each month.
“I have enough money to cover my food expenses for the month, but socialising is a bit tough,” he says.
Despite sharing his room, and his bed, he describes his current apartment as a “blessing”, largely owing to the fact that his apartment is in a gated community, where he feels safe.
[ Student accommodation crisis single biggest barrier to completing educationOpens in new window ]
A sense of security was important to him after a spate of seemingly random attacks on Indian nationals this year.
Jain says he too was targeted, and recalls being “kicked” by a teenager who passed him by on an e-scooter and laughed while he was waiting for a bus to work in June.
“I was shocked. Why would you do that to another human? For a week, I was talking to my father and was thinking about going home. I didn’t feel physically safe.
“I’m still concerned, that’s why it gives me a sense of peace, where I stay. It protects me and I don’t have to worry about these attacks.”
Jain believes he is one of the “lucky ones”, saying he knows other international students in Dublin living in an apartment with nine occupants in total.
“It’s not authorised by the apartment [management] but people are doing it without their knowledge.
“I know someone who lives in a house where there’s a person staying in the storeroom, and it’s not just one, there are many who do that. They do it because they get a bed in a closet for like €300 or €400,” he says.
“I would never stay in a store room because it really messes with your mental health.”
Another group of three friends share one room meant for one person, he says, alternating who sleeps in the single bed each night, and who sleeps downstairs in the livingroom.
While sharing his bed can be challenging at times, he says he and his roommate sometimes work different hours, meaning they do not share it every night.
He sometimes works late until 2am or 3am, while his roommate might leave for work at 5am, he says, “so it’s not that much”.
“The chances of an overlap is like once every three or four days.”
Orla Lehane, executive director of the Irish Council for International Students, said the housing crisis is having a “severe impact” on international students in Ireland, such as Jain.
“Many are facing overcrowded and poor-quality accommodation, paying unaffordable rents or being pushed into informal subletting arrangements where they have little or no legal protection. We also see international students disproportionately targeted by accommodation scams.”
Lehane said the conditions faced by these students affect not only their wellbeing, but “risk damaging Ireland’s reputation”, saying “urgent action” is needed to increase affordable student accommodation and protect students from exploitation.
Jain says he was made aware of the living arrangement by his live-in landlord before he moved in, and despite this, he said it was a “clear choice” after his first apartment.
“Sometimes I do want to spend some time alone but I can’t now in my room, so I rely on the living area or the lounge area in the building. This is what I consider my space now, which is not exactly healthy, but it’s the best I have.”