{"id":8096,"date":"2025-08-18T22:53:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T22:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/8096\/"},"modified":"2025-08-18T22:53:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-18T22:53:09","slug":"student-with-place-on-ucd-masters-course-still-awaiting-evacuation-from-gaza-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/8096\/","title":{"rendered":"Student with place on UCD master\u2019s course still awaiting evacuation from Gaza \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Department of Foreign Affairs<\/a> said it was aware of the case of a student who needed to be evacuated from Gaza<\/a> to start her course at University College Dublin<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The student, who did not wish to be named, said she was a 25-year-old architect in training. <\/p>\n

She said she was accepted earlier this year on to a master\u2019s degree course in architecture, urbanism and climate action at UCD. <\/p>\n

The university did not respond to requests for comment. <\/p>\n

The woman has tried to lobby TDs to help her get out of Gaza, so she can start her course this coming academic year. <\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

Ireland has so far facilitated the evacuation of a number of third-level students from Gaza to Ireland. <\/p>\n

In July, a group of nine Palestinian students arrived in Ireland to take up scholarships for the 2025-2026 academic year under the Government\u2019s Ireland-Palestine scholarship programme, which is run by Irish Aid<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Another three Ireland-Palestine scholarship fellows were evacuated from Gaza in April, having been able to leave in 2024. <\/p>\n

A spokesman for the department said it was \u201caware\u201d of the woman\u2019s situation. \u201cWhile 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Student activists from universities across Dublin have organised a demonstration on Tuesday outside the department\u2019s headquarters at Iveagh House in the city centre.<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

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\u2019s degrees. <\/p>\n

Others have received supports from individual Irish universities, often called \u201csanctuary scholarships\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cWith few safe passages out of Gaza, these students are being left cruelly stranded by the government that invited them here in the first place,\u201d a coalition of students\u2019 unions from Trinity College<\/a>, UCD, DCU<\/a> and the National College of Art and Design<\/a> (NCAD), who organised the protest, said in a joint statement. <\/p>\n

Harry Johnston, chair of Trinity College Dublin boycott, divestment and sanction group, a student-led pro-Palestinian organisation with no affiliation to the university\u2019s administration, said the goal of the protest was \u201cto demand better from our Government\u201d. <\/p>\n

He said there were \u201cover 40 students currently trapped in Gaza\u201d who were to begin their studies in Ireland soon. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Department of Foreign Affairs is in charge of issuing visas and should be pressuring Israeli<\/a> authorities to ensure that these people can escape,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

The department\u2019s office is a regular place of pro-Palestinian protest. <\/p>\n

Last May, red paint was splattered on the facade of Iveagh House and in August last year the words \u201cGaza BDS now\u201d were painted on Iveagh House in an act that was investigated by garda\u00ed as criminal damage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Department of Foreign Affairs said it was aware of the case of a student who needed to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":8097,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,8104,8106,18,13,14,3761,6,19,17,8105,71,3857,11,12,15,16,8107,5,7,8,63,3275],"class_list":{"0":"post-8096","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-department-of-foreign-affairs","11":"tag-dublin-city-university","12":"tag-eire","13":"tag-featured-news","14":"tag-featurednews","15":"tag-gaza-strip","16":"tag-headlines","17":"tag-ie","18":"tag-ireland","19":"tag-irish-aid","20":"tag-israel","21":"tag-israel-hamas-conflict","22":"tag-latest-news","23":"tag-latestnews","24":"tag-main-news","25":"tag-mainnews","26":"tag-national-college-of-art-and-design","27":"tag-news","28":"tag-top-stories","29":"tag-topstories","30":"tag-trinity-college-dublin-tcd","31":"tag-university-college-dublin-ucd"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8096\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8097"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}