Representatives of USI met with Dublin Corporation last week to discuss the issue of late grant payments.

The meeting follows a protest outside City Hall last week to coincide with a sitting of the City Council and a meeting between the Corporation and representatives of NUI Maynooth students' union.

According to Malcolm Byrne, education officer of USI, Dublin Corporation has been among the last of all of the local authorities to make grant payments. As of last week, some students were still awaiting first payments.

"The Corporation claims that there are staffing problems and processing delays, but how come students from other local authority areas don't have to wait as long?" he asks. The meeting, he says, was "a full and frank exchange of views".

Byrne is also concerned about what resources are being put in place to meet the higher demand for grants to result from their extension to PLC students. Dermot Lohan, president of DCU students' union, says his union has received complaints from students awaiting grant payments from Dublin Corporation. "They're all taking out loans to tide themselves over." Dublin Corporation receives more grant applications than any other local authority and a spokesman says it is trying to deal with the applications with all the resources available to it.

The spokesman adds that the Corporation hoped to meet with student representatives after Christmas to focus on "how we can help the universities to help their students get their applications into us on time and complete", which he says would be of "enormous help" in facilitating payment.