Irish Refugee Council: ‘Reform aid scheme for asylum seeker students’

The Irish Refugee Council is seeking changes to a scheme set up to provide financial support to asylum seekers attending college after just two people benefited last year.

So far this year, the Department of Education has received only five applications for the alternative grants scheme for those who are ineligible for support through the normal college grant system.

Set up on a pilot basis last year by then education minister Jan O’Sullivan, it aimed to assist students who had been through the school system here but who were still in the asylum-seeker process. There were 37 applications for assistance, but only two of them were successful, as reported by the Irish Examiner in May.