Fintan Warfield (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I join my colleague, Senator Gavan, in thanking the committee for its work. I am glad to have the opportunity to join the discussion relating the third level maintenance grant. I commend the Wake-up SUSI campaign group and support its cause. The grant needs to be more robust. There have been ongoing issues with that grant since my time in Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology. Grants need to support anyone in third level who needs means assistance, which was the original intention of the maintenance grant. However, through years of Government indifference towards students, we now have a system that is not fit for purpose. It is a system that does not cater for those who have lower incomes. We have a system where the income limits and grant awards have been cut by successive Governments despite the cost of living increases.It does not consider the extortionate price of rental accommodation that students face or the increases in the cost of transport, books and utilities. Governments were warned against this by the Union of Students in Ireland, USI, and the National Youth Council of Ireland, NYCI. Indeed, the DIT cost of living survey conducted in summer of this year found that the average cost to attend college for a student in Dublin was €12,495 and €11,766 elsewhere.

A household can often have two or three students at college at the same time but the grant does not allow for any easing in terms of income limits up to the level of four dependent children. The gross income for a household must be below €45,000 for a student to receive any level of maintenance. At that limit, the cost of living is covered to a maximum of 6.4%. The income limits of the grant do not recognise the actual lived experience of students in 2017. Students from lower and middle income households are struggling which is why student assistance fund applications have sky rocketed.

Sinn Féin believes the Minister should initiate an affordability review of third level education. There would be some stark findings for the Department in such a review. The Minister should also review the adjacency rate change, made in 2011, which extended the distance criteria from 24 km to 45 km. The implication was that all students living within 45 km of a college were expected to commute. This did not take into account the location of a college vis-à-visthe transport infrastructure in an area, meaning that it has had a more serious impact on rural communities. The move was made without considering how it might play out.

I join other Senators in thanking the students from Griffith College student's union for their report which highlights one of the many issues with the student grant. I hope the Minister identifies this as an opportunity to right that wrong.