Laws may block tackling student grant backlog

DATA protection laws may prevent councils with backlogs of student grant applications from having them cleared by other local authorities, TDs have been told.

The suggestion was put to Minister of State at the Department of Education Seán Haughey after it emerged that almost 12,800 students — more than one-in-five new applicants — have not even had their forms opened by councils and Vocational Education Committees (VECs). The grant-awarding bodies with the worst records were Cork County Council, Co Dublin VEC, Kildare Co Council, Fingal Co Council, Limerick Co Council and Co Sligo VEC, in which at least half their 8,000 applications were not processed by the end of October.

The figures were supplied by the Department of Education to Fine Gael TD Fergus O’Dowd, who suggested at a hearing of the Oireachtas Select committee on education that those awarding bodies which have cleared most or all their applications should be allowed to help process the backlogs elsewhere.