Ms Emma O'Sullivan:

I am a Cork native originally and am the president of the students' union at Dublin Business School where I am studying for my final year of business at law.

Each day I encounter genuine students who are eligible for a SUSI maintenance grant. They have come to me to discuss how difficult they have found supporting themselves in Dublin. These students are from low-income families. They chose a private approved third level institution for its reputation and for a full-time QQI degree that was offered as part of the CAO. I would like to share with the committee a blatant injustice. These eligible students have been refused access to the back-to-education allowance and the student assistance fund that has given over €43 million in the past six years to over 77,000 students. Why is this the case? Why have we not been included as part of the scheme? In other private institutions students have been assisted. As I am here to represent DBS students, I put that question to members of the committee. I will hand over to Mr. Pierce Connolly, who is the chair of the Wake Up SUSI campaign and president of Griffith College students' union.