Dublin South West Sinn Féin TD, Seán Crowe, has slated the fact that thousands of students have still not received grants from SUSI, despite their entitlement. He said it will be a bleak Christmas for students currently stuck on the grants merry-go-round
Deputy Seán Crowe said;
“The Government told us that the Student Universal Support Ireland (SUSI) would answer all of the problems of administering the student grant system. Yet, less than a fortnight from Christmas thousands of students have still not received their payments.
“Sinn Féin has received figures that show 3,217 students have still not received their grants as of the 1st of December. As SUSI has absolutely no emergency payment system and only transfers money on the third Friday of the month, it is unlikely that these hard pressed students will received any payment before Christmas..
“SUSI claims that 600 of these students provided insufficient or incorrect banking details and the rest are students who are applicants for whom the registration confirmation is awaited from their colleges prior to being approved for payment.
“These stated reasons don’t seem to stack up, and like many others, I been contacted by students who were registered months ago but have not received their essential payment support.
“It seems SUSI is intent on creating, like last year, another bleak Christmas for students stuck on the grants merry-go-around.
“Once again many students are being force to go to charities like the St. Vincent de Paul to make ends meet.
“The days of students waiting months on end for grant payments are supposed to be gone, and despite Ministerial claims that this would be a great new development, we are again on the merry-go-around.
“It is simply unacceptable to leave students in a position where they have to go and ask for help from St. Vincent de Paul to pay an ESB bill, put food on the table, pay for accommodation, or simply keep the lights on over Christmas.”