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A number of students in receipt of the Student Universal Support Ireland (SUSI) grant will have to wait until next week for their pre-Christmas payment because of a processing issue.
In a statement, SUSI said those in further education received their payments as expected on Friday, but that higher education students would not receive them until Monday. It apologised for the inconvenience caused to students.
Peadar Kenny, a student at Trinity College Dublin, said it was "incredibly tough" for the delay to happen just before Christmas and at a time when students were "knee deep in exams".
“I didn’t get my payment this morning and I didn’t receive any correspondence from SUSI. I rang them and was on hold for about 30 minutes. When I finally got through I was told it was a nationwide issue,” he said.
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“I’m in the very fortunate position that I have some money in savings to get me by but I know a lot of cases where people rely on SUSI for rent and transport and they are literally living payment to payment.”
A number of students complained under a post on SUSI’s Twitter account, with one saying she had only €8 left in her bank account.
“A lot of us are heavily relying on that money today,” another student posted.