For many families this is a tense time of year, with young adults leaving home for the first time to brave the world of third-level education. The Leaving Cert is over, the CAO forms have been filled in and the desired points have been achieved. Only one thing remains: finding a place to live for the next three or four years.
In Cork at the moment, property is at a premium as thousands of students converge on the city in search of lodgings. This year, the Cork Institute of Technology will have an enrolment of up to 5,300 students. Of these, as many as 2,450 will be from outside the city, with approximately 1,800 coming to Cork for the first time in search of a place to live.
Anxious parents will be joining them to vet the accommodation and to ensure that all is above board. To put it mildly, it's more than a property scramble - something of a stampede. Those who have left it late are starting to panic. The term is about to start, but where are they going to live? And of course everyone wants to be within walking distance of the CIT or UCC. Hard pressed parents are worried on the one hand about where their loved ones will call home and perhaps even more worried about the cost of it.
Cost is a major concern. For a young student attending UCC, accommodation will range in price from £35-a-week to almost £120. At the most basic level, the students will be sharing a loo - at the top end of the market, they will have en-suite bathroom and enough space in which to bring in sub-tenants who can reduce the cost to £40-a-week for three people sharing.
The old hands, says Mr Frank Murray of one of the biggest letting firms in Cork, will maintain the cost of an apartment throughout the summer months just to hold on to it for the following term.
There is, he adds, a strict code of conduct. No bottle parties, no late nights or noisy revelry. The students are made aware that the house rules are of paramount importance. The parents, naturally, like this idea and feel reassured. There is the equivalent of a yellow card for the first breach of rules followed by a red one if things start getting out of hand.
But according to Mr Timmy Clifford, president of the student's union at the CIT, the average increase in rents over the summer has been £5 per person for a double room to £10 per person for a single - far in excess of the level of grant payments. It will mean, he adds, that three students will share the same bedroom in an effort to minimise costs.
The CIT is located in Bishopstown, an area of Cork that has a growing and transient business community due to local technology parks. Sometimes, businessmen are seconded to Cork for a year. They can pay top dollar, and are far more attractive to landlords than students who can only guarantee rent for nine months of the year.
This has created a bidders market, says Mr Clifford, and the result is that an increasing number of students are pre-booking and paying rent over the summer months so that they can rely on the fact that they will have a place to go to when they come back to Cork. There is a very real shortage of accommodation, Mr Clifford says, and it is causing panic among students.
One solution, he suggests, would be for the Government to introduce tax incentives making it attractive for landlords to rent their properties to students. That would be a short-term move. He believes, in the long term, that the State must invest in on-campus accommodation. And if that argument needs to be pressed home, he points to the fact that less than 10 per cent of the Irish student population is living on campus.
But Ms Fiona Kelly, the student services officer at the CIT, has a different tale to tell. She says that students in the 2nd to 4th-year grades at the CIT have been much more organised this year and many of them sorted out their accommodation in June. The CIT's accommodation office has helped by distributing 500 information packs since July as well as the active information service which is available to the students. Three full-time staff have been on hand to assist.
Her basic message is that everything will work itself out and that if the normal pattern is repeated, the publication of the CAO results will lead to more accommodation becoming available. Students are being told that the types of accommodation available include digs; houses; flats; bedsits and apartments. They range in price from about £30 to £55 per week.
The pressure on young people to find a suitable roof under which to shelter can be gauged from the fact that the CIT office dealing with the issue has been busy since May. Ms Kelly agrees with Mr Clifford that properties in the area are somewhat scarcer than last year. She believes this is the result of graduates obtaining employment in high-tech industries nearby and the fact that more students are staying in Cork for summer jobs and that the property market is exerting its own influences.
"Just now, we have only four units left - the demand has been phenomenal this year," Mr Murray said. As we were speaking, he was showing Ms Mary Neeson from Killarney and her friend a property. It would cost £120-a-week. A mature student, studying ceramics, Ms Neeson said that sharing the cost would make things easier. She was very glad to get a place.
Is there an accommodation crisis or is there not? Mr Murray asked. There are differing views but there can be no question that students are hard pressed to find suitable living quarters in pleasant and convenient surroundings. "I can't say we've had a problem with the students who stay with us. By and large, what they want is a private place in which to study, a desk and heat." He added that there was no doubt there was an increase in demand.
According to UCC's figures, along with the 5,770 UCC students living at home, there will be 2,000 in apartment complexes, 2,558 in privately-owned houses, flats and bedsitters, and 310 lodging with families. Eventually, everyone finds a place, and the mums and dads who fret and worry should take a look in some of the better known student hostelries around Cork any evening. Malnutrition doesn't seem to be an issue. Often, the atmosphere would suggest that the celtic tiger has been giving out drink vouchers. But then again, that's why they're called students.