60,000 face delays in receiving grant payment

ABOUT 60,000 college students could face grant payment delays again next year because Government legislation looks unlikely to be passed in time to allow for reforms of the system. Under the Student Support Bill, the operation of all grants will become the responsibility of city and county Vocational Education Committees (VECs), which already handle two-thirds of applications.

The remainder are processed by local councils, and students complain each year that delays in some VECs and councils force certain applicants to wait until months after starting college before receiving their first grant payment.

While talks are understood to have taken place about the handover between representatives of the VEC sector and the Department of Education, the bill has not progressed since last coming before the Dáil in April, and it looks increasingly unlikely that it will take effect before next summer's grant applications.

Former education minister Mary Hanafin said when she published the bill in February she expected the new scheme to come into effect for the college year beginning in autumn 2009.

Its provisions would allow for deadlines to be set for the processing of grants, reducing delays and setting up an appeals system for unsuccessful applicants, under plans first detailed in the 2002 Programme for Government.

But Education Minister Batt O'Keeffe's spokesperson could not say yesterday when the bill will be enacted or whether its provisions will come into effect before the next academic year.

"The minister is eager that the bill goes through the legislative process as quickly as possible but it must be allowed time and scope for that process to be completed," he said.

Michael Moriarty, general secretary of the Irish Vocational Education Association (IVEA) which represents VECs, said he is hopeful it will be passed but the resourcing implications for the sector to take on the extra work might be more difficult to address in the current economic circumstances.

Union of Students in Ireland (USI) president Shane Kelly said he believes it will be 2010 at the earliest before the changes are introduced, meaning continuing delays for students.

"Student support doesn't seem to be high up on the minister's agenda; he and his department seem more interested in bringing back fees and making it harder for people to go to college.

"Everyone recognises that the grant system is flawed and needs to be overhauled, because may students are still waiting until January for their grants to come through," Mr Kelly said.

The Government gave no increase in the amounts of grants for students this year, which vary from €345 to €6,690, at a cost of more than €260 million.

Taoiseach Brian Cowen was unable to explain the delay in bringing the bill to committee stage when asked about it in the Dáil on Tuesday by Labour party education spokesman Ruairi Quinn, who urged him to ask Mr O'Keeffe to bring it forward or next year's students would otherwise not benefit from the reforms.