Residents in Goldsmith Hall who received a €200 top up on their T-Cards to compensate for construction works will be able to put the money towards their rent.
Residents have complained of ongoing construction causing noise and vibrations, as well as windows being boarded up and flats being repainted without prior notice.
Trinity has offered those affected €200 in credit on their T-Cards, which some students have asked to be put towards their rent instead.
In an email to residents last week, the Accommodation Office said: “It was intended to have the work completed well in advance of your arrival but COVID-19 delays in the supply chain meant their delivery was severely impacted.”
“To thank you for your patience we will be applying a €200 your credit to your T-Card over the next few days which you can used through the year wherever T-card is accepted.”
In an email statement to The University Times, Trinity Media Relations Officer Catherine O’Mahony said: “Goldsmith residents can indeed use their 200 euro to cover accommodation costs if they wish. The compensation was offered as internal work was being carried out.”
Final-year English student Sarah Moran said residents of her house were told the day before they moved in that construction would be ongoing, but were not told that windows would be boarded up or that flats would be repainted.
“There’s no sunlight whatsoever in the kitchen and the construction is directly outside my bedroom window and it’s really loud”, she told The University Times.
Moran also said that painters entered her kitchen unannounced to repaint the room, which left it unusable for the day.
“Myself and my flatmate arrived home. It was lunch time. We were both very hungry. We got back to our kitchen and all of our furniture was moved in front of our cupboards and in front of the cooker”, she explained.
“We couldn’t access anything and obviously because there’s no window now in our kitchen. The stink of paint was so strong for like two days.”
Moran had already paid half of her rent for the year before knowing about the works.
A room in Goldsmith Hall costs €7,748 for the academic year.
Another Goldsmith resident, Ronán Ó Dáiligh, said the drilling has been the biggest disturbance. “It was every morning at quarter to eight”, he said. “It shook my whole room.”
Ó’Dáiligh’s only kitchen window was also boarded up upon his arrival.
He also was unable to use his kitchen one day when painters arrived unannounced. “They didn’t tell us when that was going on, they just kind of came in”, he said.“I had to ask the lads to hand me out bananas.”
Last week, this newspaper reported that students living in Botany Bay are experiencing significant noise pollution from ongoing building works on the Printing House Square site.
O’Mahony said that there is no compensation plan in place for Botany residents.
Printing house Square was due to be finished on September 30th but will now likely not be completed until early 2022.
Speaking to The University Times, Project Sponsor Kevin O’Kelly said that the project would “more realistically” be completed in early 2022.
He said that, by Trinity’s own estimation, the project is five weeks behind schedule, and “optimistically” will be finished by Christmas.
However, the project could fall more behind schedule at Christmas, O’Kelly said, because “an awful lot of the labour force” on the project are from outside Ireland, many of whom go home for Christmas and do not return.
Emma Taggart also contributed reporting to this piece.
