The union of Students in Ireland (USI) has called for an additional £180 million in Government spending on education. The union's preBudget submission proposes the third-level maintenance grant be doubled, at a cost of £68.1 million; calls for £75 million to be invested in on-campus accommodation; and wants a creche to be provided in every college in the State.
However, comments from Minister for Education Micheal Martin last week suggest a substantial increase in grant levels is unlikely: "Blunt instruments such as an across-the-board increase in grants, which almost 50 per cent of students receive, would have little or no impact without a very direct impact on the money available to other education programmes." A spokesman for the Minister told E&L that grant increases were normally calculated with reference to the Consumer Price Index and increases in the average industrial wage.
USI will take heart, however, from the Minister's promise to ask universities and colleges to see if they can help with the accommodation crisis. He has also asked for a report on tax incentives and other options available to ease the shortage of accommodation suitable for students.
Meanwhile, the Labour Party will table a motion calling on the Dail to recognise "the severe difficulty that students from low- and middle-income families are facing in funding their third-level education". The Labour motion calls for a "substantial" increase in maintenance grants and an emergency programme for the provision of good quality student accommodation that involves "direct State aid and tax incentives to the private sector".
USI's pre-Budget submission calls for a sliding scale of grant payments, as recommended in the five-year-old de Buitleir report as well as a special "registration grant" of £100. The union proposes that the estimated 6,000 third-level students whose parents are classed as either semiskilled or unskilled manual workers receive a top-up grant of £500; the total cost would be £3 million. The union says the ordinary maintenance grant should be doubled because at present the full grant provides "less than 40 per cent of the actual living costs" of a student, which the union estimates to be £116.56 per week. The document argues that students cannot be expected to make up all of the shortfall by part-time work, and that some students have to work such long hours to get by that their studies are seriously affected.
USI's poverty study, published earlier this year, suggested almost 60 per cent of students who work parttime felt their jobs had a negative impact on their study.
The submission argues that higher grants will also act as an incentive to stay in education, and end a situation where unemployed school-leavers who live at home receive significantly higher payments from the State than their counterparts who go to college.
The document calls for a radical revamp in the way eligibility for the maintenance grant is assessed. USI wants entitlement to the grant to be assessed in the same manner as the summer jobs scheme.
The level of financial support available to mature students is also criticised in the document, which argues that older students are discriminated against under the current grant regime because they usually live away from their parents and can consequently only hope for 40 per cent of the maximum local authority maintenance grant. On the question of creche facilities, the submission argues that the provision of childcare is part of colleges' duty in honouring their equal-opportunities policies. It calls for the creation of a creche and a childcare fund in each third-level institution, at an estimated cost of almost £8 million, so that "every student parent in third level will have the option of placing children in a creche".
USI says that if students choose not to avail of the college creche, then they should be entitled to an allowance or subsidy towards the cost of maintaining their children in another facility.
The decline in the availability of private rented accommodation for students "has already reached crisis point", the document says, and it calls on the Departments of Education and the Environment to jointly provide financial aid to colleges for on-campus accommodation. USI say the Government should examine the effectiveness of offering tax incentives for landlords who offer accommodation on a short-term basis and should implement a Student/Landlord Charter "outlining the responsibilities of all parties involved in a leasing agreement". The union's leaders say they are "extremely pleased" with the Labour Party's proposed motion, which broadly backs the spirit of some of their demands. Party leader Ruairi Quinn met USI activists at their protest at the Dail last Tuesday and presented them with the motion, which had been passed unanimously at that morning's parliamentary party meeting.
