NOVEMBER 2007

Statutory Student Support Scheme Imminent - Keaveney

Speaking in the Seanad on Thursday Senator Cecilia Keaveney raised with the Minister of Education Mary Hanafin, the matter of the student support scheme which will put the student grant scheme on a statutory basis.

Senator Keaveney commented, “Currently the forms are complex and thus are often returned due to errors. The income threshold for the year is deemed to be very late in being decided and therefore by the time these two factors are combined the grants can be very late in arriving to the students. In the new scheme it is important that the forms are simple, the information flow occurs early in the year, there is enough staff provided to deal with the processing of the grants and in this way students will receive their support in a more timely fashion. There are currently pressures on all sides.

An important factor though that needs addressed when a scheme is statutory is the element of flexibility. Currently amid the flaws of the system there is a level of flexibility whereby discretion can be used to assist people that have a genuine problem. It is vital that some element of flexibility or discretion is enabled in the new scheme.

Senator Keaveney continued, “There is the point that we do have student grants to talk about and I raised the issue of our students being made pay fees in the North with the Minister and asked her to raise the matter at the North South Ministerial council meetings. At today’s British Irish Inter-parliamentary meeting in Oxfordshire I also raised the issue.

It is clear that if the executive had decided to prioritise access to third level they would have taken the fees issue into account when they did their recent budget. The introduction of fees in the North has been a bad step for Donegal students and minimising their ability to get involved. It is important we continue to disagree with this disenfranchising of students from Donegal from receiving free third level education at a location close to home”, concluded Senator Keaveney.

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