A luxury student accommodation complex located at the Point Village in Dublin 1 has rebranded following reports that rooms rented for the 2018/2019 academic year were unfinished when some residents arrived in September.
The change was pointed out by President of the Union of Students in Ireland (USI), Síona Cahill, at a Raise the Roof conference in the Communications Workers’ Union (CWU) Conference Centre on Wednesday. The official Twitter account of the USI posted a screenshot of a post from “Point Campus”, formerly “The Tramshed & The Woodworks”, in which it announced the change, including a picture stating “New Year, New Name”.
The rebranding comes some months after Trinity News reported that a number of Trinity students were refunded a week’s rent owing to large parts of the €230 per week accommodation still being under construction when students moved in at the start of the academic year. One resident who spoke to Trinity News had been informed that their kitchen was not fully installed and had no running water while another complained of disturbance due to the noises from ongoing drilling and construction works.
Cahill also outlined other recent cases regarding students and the housing crisis including students registering as homeless, sleeping in libraries, and commuting to Dublin from Cork. “Students are very much at the centre of this housing shit show [sic]”, she said.
Among other speakers at the conference were Deputy Chief Executive of Dublin City Council, Brendan Kenny, and Tony Fahy, Professor Emeritus at the School of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice at University College Dublin [UCD].
Raise the Roof brings together trade unions, political parties, student unions, housing agencies and community groups to demand radical action on the housing crisis.
