The Department of Foreign Affairs said it was aware of the case of a student who needed to be evacuated from Gaza to start her course at University College Dublin.
The student, who did not wish to be named, said she was a 25-year-old architect in training.
She said she was accepted earlier this year on to a master’s degree course in architecture, urbanism and climate action at UCD.
The university did not respond to requests for comment.
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The woman has tried to lobby TDs to help her get out of Gaza, so she can start her course this coming academic year.
Correspondence seen by The Irish Times showed the student had been advised she would qualify for a visa on the basis of her paperwork, but such a permit would only be issued if the Government approved another evacuation mission.
Ireland has so far facilitated the evacuation of a number of third-level students from Gaza to Ireland.
In July, a group of nine Palestinian students arrived in Ireland to take up scholarships for the 2025-2026 academic year under the Government’s Ireland-Palestine scholarship programme, which is run by Irish Aid.
Another three Ireland-Palestine scholarship fellows were evacuated from Gaza in April, having been able to leave in 2024.
A spokesman for the department said it was “aware” of the woman’s situation. “While the department is limited in the assistance it can provide to non-Irish citizens, it is currently exploring options to assist individuals who are eligible to travel to Ireland,” he said.
Student activists from universities across Dublin have organised a demonstration on Tuesday outside the department’s headquarters at Iveagh House in the city centre.
They are demanding the Government facilitate the evacuation of Gazan students who have a confirmed place in Irish universities and are due to begin their studies in September.
Many of these Gazan students have received scholarships from the Irish Representative Office in Ramallah through the Irish Aid-run programme, which provides 30 scholarships for one-year master’s degrees.
Others have received supports from individual Irish universities, often called “sanctuary scholarships”.
“With few safe passages out of Gaza, these students are being left cruelly stranded by the government that invited them here in the first place,” a coalition of students’ unions from Trinity College, UCD, DCU and the National College of Art and Design (NCAD), who organised the protest, said in a joint statement.
Harry Johnston, chair of Trinity College Dublin boycott, divestment and sanction group, a student-led pro-Palestinian organisation with no affiliation to the university’s administration, said the goal of the protest was “to demand better from our Government”.
He said there were “over 40 students currently trapped in Gaza” who were to begin their studies in Ireland soon.
“The Department of Foreign Affairs is in charge of issuing visas and should be pressuring Israeli authorities to ensure that these people can escape,” he said.
The department’s office is a regular place of pro-Palestinian protest.
Last May, red paint was splattered on the facade of Iveagh House and in August last year the words “Gaza BDS now” were painted on Iveagh House in an act that was investigated by gardaí as criminal damage.
