UP TO 50 students a week are being forced to drop out of third-level institutions because they have yet to receive their first-term grant, the Union of Students of Ireland (USI) has said.

Addressing an Oireachtas education committee yesterday, USI education officer Hugh O’Sullivan said the higher education grant system was in “meltdown” and students’ health and mental wellbeing was suffering.

Of the 66 grant-awarding bodies around the State, mainly local authorities and VECs, 16 had yet to make any grant payments as of November 18th and 12 of those said they did not expect to finish processing grant applications until January 10th.

There had been a 46 per cent increase in applications this year, but because of the public sector employment moratorium, county councils and VECs did not have the staff to process the applications.

The Student Support Bill, which would have simplified the grant system and reduced the number of awarding bodies, was published 23 months ago, but had still not been enacted, Mr O’Sullivan said.

Student unions in every part of the State were dealing with cases of extreme individual hardship, because of the lack of payment of grants, he told the committee.

“A student lived from November 9th-13th on digestive biscuits taken from the student common room in GMIT Castlebar . . . A student has been committed to the mental health wing of Mayo General Hospital due to stress caused by financial pressure.”

Fine Gael education spokesman Brian Hayes said one-third of the registration fee was being spent on student services and two-thirds was used by colleges to supplement the core grant.

“The Minister now says he is going to ask the HSE to look into this. That’s like asking Gordon Gekko to do a report on social welfare. The HSE are complicit in this con trick.”