Students starve as SUSI nightmare continues into 2013

Student Unions are being forced to set up food boxes for some students who are too poor to afford food according to a local teacher.  Fionntán O' Súilleabháin said that students were struggling to pay for rent and food due to continued delays in the processing of their grants.  The Sinn Féin rep said that more than one thousand Wexford students were among those affected by the delays.

Mr O' Súilleabháin said;

"In a week when the government bought 58 new Audi A6 cars for their use we learn that Irish students are literally starving on college campuses across the state.  Like something out of a Dickens novel, Student Unions are being forced to set up food collection boxes for hungry students while our government splashes the cash on its own creature comforts.  This is disgusting and totally unacceptable."

"It's now January and there are five and a half thousand students who are yet to receive a cent of their college grant payments.  Among those affected are more than a thousand County Wexford students.  Sinn Féin warned two months ago that students were being forced to drop out of school because of the delays in the processing of payments.  Now they are starving on college campuses and still nothing is done."

"This year third level students were encouraged to apply for their grant payments through the new SUSI online application system that had been established by the Department of Education.  SUSI has been an unbridled disaster from the very start."

"This problem has been brought to the attention of the government and they are very much aware of it.  Unfortunately they don't seem to care and are showing utter contempt for the welfare of our students.  This situation is a damning indication of the government's commitment to ordinary citizens."