Sir - I was not surprised to hear of Anita Monaghan's disgust at not receiving the maintenance grant (October 17th). Every day USI deals with enquiries from students who have been refused the grant or from students who are finding it difficult to live on the current grant (£49 a week).
At present a family with four children and a mortgage, earning £25,000 a year before tax, will get no support when struggling to send their eldest to third level. Is this a just system? Is there any excuse for this when we are sitting on such a massive budget surplus? The question no longer is: can we afford to increase the grant? The question is, can we afford not to?
Students are very angry about this issue. Last Wednesday hundreds of students from the Institute of Technology in Sligo protested over the disgracefully low level of the grant. The previous week in Athlone, 1,000 students took to the streets. The current grant is not enough to cover basic needs such as food and shelter, never mind books, pens and paper. To address the hardship faced by poorer students the Minister announced an increase in the grant of £6.25 a week for 10,000 students (The Irish Times, September 15th). We welcome this, but £6.25 wouldn't even cover the cost of a weekly bus ticket. Irish students demand more then tokenism to address inequality in third level. - Is mise,
Colm J. Jordan, Education Officer, Union of Students in Ireland, Amiens Street,Dublin 1.