Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 2 December 2020
112. Deputy Cathal Crowe asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science if the means-testing criteria of the SUSI grant for third level education can be amended in order that in situations in which one parent is on a disability payment such as an invalidity pension the student is not losing out due to overall household income. [40617/20]
View answerThe principal support provided by the Department in financial terms is the Student Grant Scheme. Under the terms of the Scheme, grant assistance is awarded to students attending an approved course in an approved institution who meet the prescribed conditions of funding, including those relating to nationality, residency, previous academic attainment and means.
The decision on eligibility for a student grant is a matter, in the first instance, for the centralised student grant awarding authority SUSI (Student Universal Support Ireland) to determine.
The qualifying criteria for the special rate of maintenance grant is as follows:
(i) The student must qualify for the standard rate of grant (i.e. the 100% grant);
(ii) Total reckonable income, after income disregards and Child Dependant Increase(s) are excluded, must not exceed €24,500; and
(ii) As at 31st December 2019, the reckonable income must include one of the eligible long-term social welfare payments prescribed in the Student Grant Scheme.
The income threshold for the special rate of grant was increased from €24,000 to €24,500 for the 2020 Scheme, so as to ensure that students from families dependent on welfare will continue to be eligible for the special rate of grant. (This reflects the Budget 2019 increase to the maximum point of the weekly State Contributory Pension, plus maximum Qualified Adult Allowance for a person over 66 years).
Both Disability Allowance and Invalidity Pension are eligible payments for the purposes of qualifying for the special rate of grant.
For student grant purposes, Disability Allowance and Invalidity Pension are treated as reckonable income for the SUSI means assessment process in a similar fashion to other Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection payments such as Jobseekers Benefit/Allowance, thus ensuring a consistency of approach and an equitable treatment of students and their families in the SUSI means assessment process.
However, Disability Allowance, where it is paid to the applicant, is an income disregard for student grant purposes and is not included in the means test. This treatment, along with other provisions of the scheme, ensures that those students most in need receive supports commensurate with their needs.
If an individual applicant considers that she/he has been unjustly refused a student grant, or that the rate of grant awarded is not the correct one, she/he may appeal, in the first instance, to SUSI.Where an individual applicant has had an appeal turned down in writing by an appeals officer in SUSI and remains of the view that the scheme has not been interpreted correctly in his/her case, an appeal may be submitted to the independent Student Grants Appeals Board within the required timeframe (i.e. not later than 30 days after the notification of the determination of the appeals officer to the applicant). Such appeals can be made by the appellant on line via www.studentgrantappeals.ie.
I also think it is important for students to be aware of the other supports available to them, particularly the Student Assistance Fund which assists students, in a sensitive and compassionate manner, who might otherwise be unable to continue their third level studies due to their financial circumstances. Information on the fund is available through the Access Officer in the third level institution attended. This fund is administered on a confidential, discretionary basis.
