TO BE ABSOLUTELY fair to the Dublin Institute of Technology, the rodent poison laid in its Portland Row facility is almost unnoticeable until it is pointed out.
The small, white boxes of rat bait have been discreetly placed in rotting corners and behind filthy doors, so that the visitor is so distracted by the general air of dirt and decay that the rat poison just blends in with the general ambience.
In fact, if it wasn't for the poison, Portland Row would be just the sort of place in which a rat could make a very nice home for itself.
Portland Row houses the DIT's art and design students in workhouse conditions. The upstairs toilets are used by students to store their projects, the wash up room is so unpleasant that even a rat would have second thoughts about setting up shop in it and the sign on the wash up room door, which advises students to wear rubber gloves and eye protectors, could equally apply to the downstairs toilets.
If one needed a symbol of the neglect of the art and design sector at third level, then Portland Row would fit the role like a glove, albeit the sort of glove that you wouldn't pull off with your teeth.
The message from art and design students in Waterford RTC, Cork RTC, Galway RTC, Limerick RTC, the DIT and the NCAD - in other words, virtually the entire third level art and design sector is that they are underfunded, underresourced and, in some eases, quite possibly at risk. The inadequacies in the sector combine to create a depressing litany of complaints which support claims that the art and design sector is the poor relation at third level.
Ronan Emmet, deputy convenor of the students' union at DIT College of Marketing and Design, of which Portland Row is an annex, describes art and design students as "the forgotten people". The conditions in Portland Row and in other art and design faculties around the State raise questions about the Minister for Education's claims that "very significant progress" has been made towards providing art and design colleges with "a safe working environment for their students".
In Portland Row, sculpture students work in a yard almost entirely exposed to the elements, with the exception of a small, corrugated iron roof in one corner. There is no outside lighting: in winter, the students have to stop working as soon as daylight begins to fade. The impression is that one has wandered accidentally on to an abandoned building site.
"Space," says one sculpture student, "that's what we need most. To be able to work on a level surface, to be able to step back." The atmosphere is "vibrant", she says, despite, the conditions. Earlier this year, students at Portland Row became so frustrated with the failure to deal with the problems in the facility that they threatened to strike. Eventually, some of them ended up doing painting and decorating work themselves.
IN JANUARY, part of the plaster ceiling in Portland Row fell down. When this was mentioned to the Minister for Education during a recent Dail debate, it elicited this classic response from Niamh Bhreathnach: "I did not plaster the walls in Portland Row." This is almost certainly true, since the Minister would probably have formed an expert group on plastering before proceeding with renovations of any kind, in person or otherwise.
It is not only the physical conditions in Portland Row that are a cause for concern. The college has no technicians, despite the fact that 300 students study there.
Crawford College of Art and Design in Cork, which has 256 students, has four technicians. The NCAD, with 700 students, has, 19 technicians. As one lecturer put it, the number of hours he can spend with students is reduced because he also has to do the cleaning and maintenance work, which usually devolves to a technician.
"I don't believe that the DIT knows what is going on," says Ronan Emmet of the conditions at Portland Row. The only solution to the difficulties there, he says, is to close the building and move the students elsewhere. "There's a total lack of communications between the students and management in Mountjoy Square. They feel totally isolated from the college."
Dr Ellen Hazelkorn, director of the faculty of applied arts in the DIT, says that the transfer of the art and design sector of the institute to more suitable accommodation is high on her agenda and the agenda of the institute. "I would like it yesterday, but it's not within my gift," she says, adding that the DIT does not have "complete control" over its destiny at present and has to apply to the Department of Education for funding.
She hopes, she says, for a solution to the technician problem "within the short term".
