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North Clare woman to challenge grant reforms in High Court


A NORTH Clare woman is among a number of students taking part in a Union of Students of Ireland (USI) High Court challenge to the reform of the maintenance grants system, which will see some students lose up to 60% of their entitlements this year.

In December 2010, the then government announced changes to the grants system whereby the non-adjacent grant threshold went from the 24 kilometres to 45 kilometres. In previous years, eligible students from south of Ardrahan were entitled to the full non-adjacent grant rate if attending classes in NUI Galway. Now they must be more than 45km from where they attend third-level education to qualify so in the case of NUIG, they must be South of Tubber or West of Finavarra. Students from Ennis are within 45km of Limerick Institute of Technology and therefore will no longer be entitled to the non-adjacent maintenance grant.
The Government announced the change in last year’s Budget claiming that improvements to public transport makes it more feasible to commute from long distances. USI insists this is not the case and that thousands are facing unmanageable cuts as a result. Last month, the High Court granted USI leave to challenge this reform of grants.
Medb McCarthy from Burrin, between New Quay and Kinvara, is one of the students affected by the change and USI confirmed she is involved in the test cases.
“The cut in her grant means she can no longer afford to live in Galway, where she studies but public transport from her native Clare means she cannot make it to college until after 11am each morning,” explained Gary Redmond, USI president.
USI, represented by Dublin-based legal firm Mangan O’Beirne Solicitors, is supporting a number of the cases of plaintiffs as part of its legal action.
The High Court heard current students could not legitimately have expected their grants to be cut by so much in some cases seeing their grant cut from €6,100 to €2,445 as a result of the new boundary changes.
Mr Redmond said the Government encouraged school leavers to go onto college and mature students to return to education but the recent grant cuts would force many of those to emigrate or onto ever-increasing dole queues.

 

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