USI IS TO hold an emergency national council meeting today to consider the implications for students of the upcoming general election - and to alert students' union officers and student activists to the issues and policies relevant to them.

"It's important to get every one together at this point," says USI's deputy president, Noeleen Hartigan. USI is planning to distribute 60,000 leaflets to colleges in the coming weeks and the union's general election roadshow will visit every college before the end of term. The leaflets include details of the discrepancy between grant aid and the cost of living for students; the lack of an automatic entitlement to health cards for students; and problems with library facilities.

The aim is to ensure that students are registered to vote, know the issues and the candidates in their constituency and have a list of questions to put to candidates in person, including queries on grants, the summer jobs scheme and access for the disadvantaged.

Fianna Fail is the only party to have launched a specific policy paper on third level education, which promises a gradual increase in maintenance grants, a review of income limits for grant qualification and the extension of grants to PLC students, Hartigan says.

Labour, by contrast, has said that the funding for PLC grants is not available at present but has promised that, under its new Social Charter, no one between the ages of 18 and 21 will be on the dole. Where exactly they will be is not clear; down salt mines, maybe, or in jail.

The Green Party, Hartigan says, has made no clear references to third level education, while the PDs and Democratic Left support the extension of maintenance grants to PLC students.

"Overall it's a positive picture," she says. "Every party admits that the grant is inadequate, a sign that our work has paid off."