Colm Keaveney (Galway East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I move beyond the issue of SUSI to address a concern recently raised by student representatives at GUH, UCHG and GMIT regarding the student assistant fund. This is co-funded by Government and our European partners and acts as a lifeline for students who are most at risk of dropping out. I appeal to the Minister of State to do everything possible within the discretion of a very challenging budget to ensure we maintain welfare services across student unions and student support systems for those students who find themselves in a distressed situation. Between increased demand and recused funding, the payment from this fund has fallen. I take UCD for an example. The average payment there in 2007-08 was €750 but last year this had fallen to €400. Many of my constituents report many difficulties. This is a very small amount of money relative to the scale of our budget and I ask the Minister of State to keep that in mind when he speaks to the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Quinn, in order to ensure that we maintain levels of welfare support for students at third level.

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