About 500 students in Carlow RTC staged a sit-in last week in protest at the "unacceptable" problems facing students in the college.

According to a list of grievances compiled by the students' union, classes in one room are expected to work in "arctic conditions", some classes are timetabled for portakabins without light or heating and a number of classes have been doublebooked for rooms since the start of the year. The college is missing a maths and management-finance lecturer; some business students are being limited to one hour of computers per week or, in the case of one class, no computers at all; one computer class has even been timetabled to a room with no computers.

Students' union president Phil Madden describes a "drought" of computers in the college, particularly with Pentium processors. "There are still quite a number of 386s," he says. "One student suggested that the college was waiting until they became museum pieces so they could sell them off."

In a statement issued before the protest, the union said that it had taken the action because it had "lost faith in the ability of the existing management structure in the college to deal effectively with such problems".

In a statement sent to E&L, the registrar of the college, Brian Bennett, said "the college has always had procedures for dealing with student concerns. These were not utilised by the students' union president." The statement went on to claim that the college did not become aware of students' concerns until Monday of last week, the day before the sit-in.

The management of the college had declined to meet student representatives directly, preferring instead to deal with them through the head of student services. The union was unhappy with this arrangement, believing that it ran contrary to the principles of student representation.

The students' union expressed the hope that discussions between students and management could begin this week. The statement from college management said only that "normal established college procedures are now in operation and students' concerns are being investigated and dealt with properly".