Warning of mass protest over student grant system

A RETURN to mass student protests cannot be ruled out as long as uncertainty remains about efficient grant payments, Union of Students in Ireland (USI) president Tony McDonnell warned last night.

Although student unrest over fees and funding was relatively low-key over the past two years, he said that much of the Government’s plans to streamline the grants system have yet to be ironed out.

Education Minister Mary Hanafin announced recently that she will introduce legislation handing responsibility for the grants schemes to one agency from next year.

The proposed move will also guarantee payments within the first month of students returning to college each year, good news for the 55,000-plus third-level students currently benefiting.

“We would like much more concrete details as to how she’s going to improve the grants system. We have got what we wanted, so far, without having to hold mass protests in recent times but action will be necessary again unless we can be sure these plans will work,” Mr McDonnell said last night.

Delegates at the USI annual congress in Ennis backed motions supporting the centralisation of the grants scheme but vowed to keep up pressure.

“There are local authorities which continue to renege on their responsibilities and ignore their statutory obligations to deliver cheques to students on time,” said Trinity College Dublin delegate Stephanie O’Brien.

Colm Hamrogue of Institute of Technology Sligo, who takes over as USI president in July, said slow payments by some vocational education committees (VECs) and local authorities remained a problem.

While Mr McDonnell said the grants issue was the biggest one facing the union, he expressed concern about the direction being taken by government policy, particularly the focus of its Strategic Innovation Fund for third-level institutions.

“Education should be something more than a labour supplier for the economy but there is a disproportionate emphasis on science and technology, and a lack of funding for research in humanities or social science which more people are still choosing,” he said.

Mr McDonnell also supported delegates’ wishes to research how the registration fee charged to all third-level students was actually spent.

“It’s supposed to go towards student services, but we’re seeing library hours cut back and actual times you can borrow books reduced, even though the fee continues to rise,” he added.