USI has asked the Department of Education to investigate how a list of local grant recipients appeared in a provincial newspaper. The list, which contained full names and addresses of over 100 students who were in receipt of grants from Kilkenny Co Council appeared in a September issue of the Kilkenny People, along with details of their courses of study.
The publication of the list may now place those involved in breach of the Data Protection Act.
Kilkenny Co Council denied releasing the information for publication. "We have a Higher Education Grants Committee to whom details of grants are circulated," says John Tierney, county secretary of Kilkenny Co Council.
"It would seem to have got from there to the paper. They were not published by the council and we did not circulate them to the paper. If someone chooses to do so, then it's quite difficult to prevent that happening."
The Higher Education Grants Committee has 20 members, 16 of whom are members of Kilkenny Co Council and four of whom are external members.
USI has made known its objections to the publication of the list to the Department of Education. "I find it highly objectionable," says USI's education officer Malcolm Byrne.
"It's confidential information and concerns family income. It's very unfair to have details of the fact that someone has qualified for a grant published in a newspaper. It's almost as if the Kilkenny People had published a list of social welfare recipients. It's very unfair on the students and families concerned."
The students listed are attending third level institutions around the country, including larger colleges such as UCD and TCD, as well as smaller institutions, including Mary Immaculate in Limerick and the Mater Dei Institute in Dublin. A significant number of the applicants listed are attending Waterford RTC.
The president of Waterford RTC students union, John McGrath, said it was an "unwarranted intrusion" into the private lives of students.
"I'd be aghast that something like that could occur," he said. "It's bad enough if it was printed by mistake but if it was deliberately leaked it's even worse. I can't figure out the reasoning behind it."
John Kerry Keane, the editor of the Kilkenny People, defended the decision to print the leaked list. "It's public money. It's a matter of public concern," he said.
"There is widespread anger at the perceived inequity in the way in which some of the grants have been allocated. Many PAYE earners only marginally fail to qualify for grants and receive no assistance while it appears a significant proportion of those who do benefit are from the families of the self employed."
He said public monies allocated in other ways received full publicity and contested USI's view that printing the list was not entirely dissimilar to printing a list of social welfare recipients, arguing that the students were "intellectual achievers" and that therefore it was a quite different, situation.
Both USI and Waterford RTC students' union have said they will assist any student who wishes to make a formal complaint to the Data Protection Commissioner. The Commissioner can only investigate a complaint if it comes from one of the students affected.
