But the good news is that unless you're looking for accommodation in south Dublin, there is still enough housing for students in the rest of the country.

Students in Galway, Cork, Athlone, north Dublin and Maynooth have reported that all students will find accommodation, although they may have to pay more than last year.

"There is a lot of student accommodation in Athlone. The main problem here is that the price of rent has increased quite a lot in the last few years, " said Carmel Foley of Athlone IT students' union. "The highest rent you used to have to pay per week here was 70 but now we're looking at up to 90 a week. It can be hard for students from lower income families because while the government grants have increased, they haven't increased in line with inflation."

All the same, rent in Athlone is one of the lowest in the country. Students in Maynooth pay an average of 80- 100 a week, while in Cork and Galway, rent can be close to 120 for a single room in a house.

"There has been an incredible rush for accommodation this year, " said Liz Mulry of NUI Galway students' union.

"When the local paper brought out the accommodation list a couple of weeks ago, the queues for the newspaper were 300-deep. In Galway, there isn't a lack of accommodation, but if you wanted to find exactly what you were looking for, you had to be really quick off the mark this year."

No one has had as much trouble as students from University College Dublin, however, who have reported that some students are paying up to 200 a week in rent. "Our postal code has always been our worst enemy but this year has seen an incredible leap in rent prices, " said Gavin O'Reilly of UCD students' union. "It has been particularly hard on first-year students, because many students have held on to their accommodation from last year."

Meanwhile, students in the north of Dublin are unlikely to be faced with the same problems.

"DCU students aren't back for another month, so there isn't a huge rush for housing yet, " said a spokeswoman. "But there's usually more than enough accommodation to go around."