A significant increase in top-up grants for third-level students was announced by the Department of Education yesterday in an effort to encourage participation among the most socio-economically disadvantaged.
The 22 per cent increase in the top-up maintenance grant will become effective from this September and be made payable to some 12,500 students countrywide.
Effectively, students qualifying for the grant can now receive €5,970 for the forthcoming academic year. In addition, the threshold to qualify for this top-up grant has been increased by over 7 per cent to €16, 748.
Announcing the increase yesterday, Minister for Education Mary Hanafin said it was a priority of Government to provide further increases in the student maintenance grants rate following on the 20 per cent increase in 2005.
"This is critical in encouraging participation in further and higher education among the most socio-economically disadvantaged. Greater participation and equitable access is vitally important if the fruits of the economy are to be enjoyed by all," Ms Hanafin said.
In addition to the top-up grant increase, the reckonable income limits for the ordinary maintenance grants will be increased by 5.3 per cent.
The top income limit for grant eligibility, where there are less than four dependent children, will now stand at €46,700.
The ordinary maintenance grant rate itself will increase by 3 per cent, giving a maximum grant of €3,110 from September.
Following last week's claims by the Union of Students in Ireland that grants would be made available to students late on in the academic year, Ms Hanafin insisted yesterday that grant applications will be processed in advance of September and that qualifying students should not experience delays in the receipt of their payments.
"All of the awarding bodies are now on stand-by to handle and process applications in good time for the start of the new academic year. We know from previous years, however, that students have endured delays in receiving their payments as a direct result of making inaccurate or incomplete initial applications," she said.
Fine Gael's education spokeswoman, Olwyn Enright, said yesterday's "inexplicable delay" of one month in announcing third- level grants would create further pressure for students.
She reasoned that the failure to announce details of the scheme until yesterday will simply compound existing delays.