While new student accommodation is now breaking the mould, four ex-students tell Róisín Ingle about the bad old days of bedsit blues

Mention student digs to those of us over a certain age, and images of peeling wallpaper, rising damp and less than basic cooking facilities spring to mind. These days that image is increasingly irrelevant - anyone who has heard the radio ads for the latest generation of student accommodation could be forgiven for thinking students are now living in the kind of luxury many of those who have since graduated cannot afford.

Free broadband internet . . . laundry facilities on site . . . landscaped gardens . . . 24-hour security. Canny students now have a shopping list as long as their book list when it comes to where they are going to live. Located beside the DCU complex in Glasnevin, Dublin, The Gateway is one of a new crop of privately developed "student villages". Within days of advertising the units, staff at Ely Property had sent out 400 application forms for the 60 two- and three-bedroomed apartments, located a 15-minute bus ride from the city-centre.

"We think it's a steal," says a spokesman for the €85 per week accommodation which does not include heating and electricity. "It's high quality living but at an affordable price."

In Cork where a family-run student village has been running for the past 10 years, the idea has taken firm root. "In the past students would have gone more for lodgings or shared a room in a house but now privately-run self-catering complexes are gradually becoming the preferred option," says Orlaith Forbes of the student village at Victoria Cross. "I would say the first-year students head to the complexes for security. It can often be cheaper to stay there than in a house, especially when bills such as electricity and internet are included in the rent. From my experience there are a lot more empty houses around now that in the past would have been packed with students."

The price was certainly what attracted Polish electrical engineering student Marek Rylko to the complex at Victoria Cross five minutes from UCC, which costs him around €90 a week. "I pay just one fee and that includes all my bills so I don't have the worry of those expenses."

Living surrounded by students is also a bonus. "I am far away from my home and family so while I am here the students become my own family. The standard of accommodation is pretty good. I wouldn't say it's like a five-star hotel, but it provides good conditions for learning. One drawback is that it's a bit away from the city but this means it's also further from the parties, which is good for study."

Not all students are opting for apartment complexes, and the rental experts at online company Daft.ie still advise that house sharing is a cost-effective way to enjoy student life. "If you don't know anyone coming up to Dublin, your best bet is to live in a house share. You will save money and get to know new people. If you are willing to share a room you can expect to pay as little as €250-300 a month," says Eamon Fallon of Daft.ie.

A double room on your own in a house will cost from €400 to €600 a month, according to the experts. "I think in general the quality of accommodation for students has greatly increased over the past two years and at the same time the prices have not really gone up that much."

Although you can still find examples of it, bedsit accommodation (the kind where odd smells were as common as suspicious stains on the bed) is not that popular any more, mainly because - in Dublin at least - it is no longer affordable. Fallon points out that students can expect to pay roughly €580 a month for a bedsit in the former student mecca of Rathmines, which works out as far more expensive than more luxurious accommodation a little further from town.

But while life in the modern Student Village sounds appealing, there is a downside to an almost Big Brother style of property management where cameras and caretakers keep a beady eye on students around the clock. At The Gateway there is a lengthy list of rules for residents to obey, including one which stipulates that all visitors have to be out by midnight. It will be interesting to see how they go about enforcing that in Freshers Week.

For information and advice on student living visit www.accommodationforstudents.com/ireland.asp, www.daycourses.com/articles/accommodation.html and www.studentaccommodation.ie

Blathnaid Ní Chofaigh, presenter, The Afternoon Show

I didn't go to university but I had student digs when I was 15 after moving from Co Meath to go to school in Coláiste Íosagáin in Dublin. I lived in Dundrum with three fellas and I ended up looking after them, because they couldn't look after themselves. I was up there from Monday to Friday and I'd go back home for the weekend. You might think for a 15-year-old it would be wild but none of my classmates were allowed out during the week so I just used to go to bed and do my homework.

I made a fortune off the students, charging them for things like ironing shirts, cooking the dinner or cleaning up the house if their mammies were coming around. They just seemed to eat toast, drink Maxwell House coffee and play the board game Dungeons and Dragons the whole time. There was never any fear of me developing romantic feelings for them because there was nothing attractive about them. I thought they were ridiculous, supposedly doing arts degrees but never doing any study, just staying up all night three days before the exams.

I seem to remember the ones who were on grants had the best life, but the ones who were funded by their parents were always broke. They used to play John Cougar Mellencamp and 10,000 Maniacs to death and have stupid arguments about politics. Some of them ended up in the Labour Party and in RTÉ. They pretend not to know me now.

Mike Ryan, Owner of Isaac's Brasserie in Cork

I spent my first couple of years at college living in digs in Leixlip, so going into Trinity on the bus was a pain. Finally the year came when I was entitled to rooms in Trinity. I couldn't believe my luck having my own place in the centre of town. At the time my father owned the only Michelin-starred restaurant in Ireland but I'd be living off tinned beans.

Those were the days when you only got olive oil in a chemist. It was the 1970s - the height of sophistication at the time was having my own espresso pot. Sometimes when he'd come to Dublin my father might take me to dinner in the Shelbourne where I'd end up eating for three.

Being a resident you were always around the college, a fact which the gardaí took advantage of: I remember being picked out for a police line-up in Pearse Street once. Having rooms in the college, you were very much in demand by students as well, as you might imagine.

Marian Keyes, Author

My student digs were at my mammy's house in Monkstown which was just a short hop in the 46A to where I was studying law at UCD. I had a friend who had a real flat, not a smelly student place, with electric gates and an intercom, which was unheard of back then.

I would have been happy with a stinky bedsit but financially it just wouldn't have made sense when I could stay at home. I was skint all the time so my dad sometimes picked me up from college on his way home from work. I was very keen on my dinners at home rather than paying for chips in college.

Every Saturday my mam went to Anne's Hot Bread shop and bought around 8,000 French sticks, sliced them in half and made French bread pizza and put them in the freezer. We were a very freezer-dependent family back then, refusing to eat what my mother made fresh.

Long before we were students we behaved like students. My mother washed and ironed my clothes until I left home, so I was spoilt rotten. I very boldly did treat the place like a hotel. Then I went to live in London where I waitressed and shared a flat on the 21st floor of a tower block in a dangerous area with a gay man.We had no furniture and lived on toast and Dairylea. They were my real student digs, I just did it in reverse.

Ray D'Arcy, Rose of Tralee host and Today FM radio presenter

I spent most of my [ student] life commuting from Kildare to Dublin but there was one term when I had student digs in Brighton Square in Rathgar. It was a basement flat, and it stank of stale cooking. I shared it with three other guys from Kildare so it was a bit crowded, although I don't remember any really dodgy hygiene stories.

My course in psychology took up only eight hours a week so I had a lot of time on my hands. I was the only one of my flatmates who bothered cooking, so I got the nickname "Evening Meal Ray". I'd be doing stirfrys with pineapple and pork that never quite came out right. They thought I was mad because they were saving all their money for beer. I was a DJ at the time and sometimes I would sell records in Freebird for beer money but I was really into my cooking, too. For the rest of my time in Trinity I came up on the bus from Kildare with my salad sandwich which was a wilted lettuce leaf and tomato and maybe a bit of cucumber if I was lucky in between two slices of bread.

There was one guy I hung around with who had a wealthy father - a director in a leading transport company - and, being polite, I would always offer him a bit of my sandwich. The fecker would always take it.