Student grants reform held up by legislation delay

EDUCATION Minister Mary Hanafin is still awaiting the final draft of legislation to transfer the handling of all college grant applications to Vocational Education Committees (VECs) — 15 months after first announcing the plans.

The VECs handle about two-thirds of the 60,000 applications for maintenance grants, but will take over the remainder from local councils when the Student Support Bill is passed.

Ms Hanafin first announced the selection of VECs to run the schemes in June last year, and planned to introduce the necessary laws in time for students applying for grants this summer. The statutory scheme will mean each VEC must process applications by a target date every year.

But work on the bill to facilitate the changes has been ongoing for more than a year, while plans to publish it before the election were unsuccessful.

The minister said she now hopes to introduce the bill in the Dáil before Christmas, but she was unable to guarantee the reforms would be in place for students applying for grants next summer.

“That is my intention; once the legislation is passed there’ll be no delay in doing it,” she said.

“There were issues that had to be teased out and we haven’t got the final draft yet. But I know the Parliamentary Counsel office are making good progress on it.”

The Attorney General’s office, meanwhile, is still considering the legal implications of students from the Republic seeking support for attending colleges in the North.

This is one of a number of issues that have delayed the bill’s publication.

At its annual congress last week, the Irish Vocational Education Association, which represents the 33 city and county VECs, called for the changes to be brought through urgently.

VEC leaders also urged the Department of Education to speed up the annual announcement of income thresholds for qualifying, to help them process the grants on time.

The department released details of this year’s grant schemes in early July, but last year’s were not sent to VECs and councils until late July, which caused subsequent delays for applicants.

Some 56,000 third-level students qualified for support last year with the standard grant rising 10% to €3,420 for students living away from home and almost €6,700 available to those from families on the lowest levels of income.