Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 20 May 2021
76. Deputy Ged Nash asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science if he plans to amend the earnings disregard for qualification for a SUSI grant to include support received by students who have received pandemic unemployment payment support as a consequence of the loss of a job during the Covid-19 pandemic; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26777/21]
View answerThis is on the same topic. It is on amending the earnings disregard for qualification for a SUSI grant to include support received by students in receipt of the pandemic unemployment payment. It will give the Minister an opportunity to expand on what he has already said.
I thank Deputies Ó Ríordáin and Nash for the question. As Deputy Ó Ríordáin said, it gives me an opportunity to expand further on the previous question. There is a holiday earnings disregard under SUSI of €4,500 in respect of income earned by students outside of term time, for example, the summer period and the Christmas season. Importantly, this remains available to all SUSI applicants in respect of such earnings. Students and others may decide to avail of work over the summer period and the income disregard remains in place.
A core principle that underpins the SUSI means assessment process is that there has to be a consistency of approach and equitable treatment of students and their families to ensure fair use of the financial resources available.
This includes the treatment of similar social protection payments for students and families.
In being conscious of making sure that we continue to support our students and that we recognise we have lived through extraordinary times, I need to make sure that we are consistent and fair to all students regardless of which social welfare support they may have received over the past year. The pandemic unemployment payment, PUP, is a social protection payment for employees and self-employed people who lost their employment on or after 13 March 2020 due to Covid-19 public health emergencies. Students who lost their employment due to Covid-19 are eligible for the payment. I am pleased that that is the case. The PUP payment has been treated as reckonable income for the SUSI means assessment process since it was introduced in March 2020. This is not new. It has always been reckonable income. This means that income from the Covid-19 payment has the same standing and is treated in a similar fashion as other Department of Social Protection benefits. We need to be fair. We need to be equitable, including in how we apply the terms of the holiday income disregard.
We have received over 46,000 applications. We have assessed over 28,500. The number of people who have been assessed as eligible for support is 26,500 - a very high rate. We are keeping this under close review.
Most students are assessed based on the family income - the income coming into the house. Most families and most households in this country have seen their income go down and not up over the course of the pandemic. I am not yet convinced that this will be a major factor but I will monitor it closely.
It may not be a major factor in every case but for the individual cases in which it may be a factor, it could be life-changing. This is the issue. My understanding is that there is a €4,500 income disregard applied to any income earned during the period for the SUSI grant applications and students are being advised that income from the PUP payment is not included in the income disregard. I am asking the Minister that the PUP be automatically included in the income disregard for applicants of the SUSI grant scheme because, as the Minister has repeated, there does not appear to be a huge problem. However, the Minister must concede that even if it is in one case, it will be life-changing for that individual student. Given the circumstances that we have all lived through for the past year, it is not worth it for this anomaly to continue to stand over a system that should be more flexible considering the type of industries that students normally work in, such as the hospitality sector and retail.
First, we should not say we are standing over a system that we are not yet sure is as the Deputy describes. I agree that this is about every individual student and I do not intend to be in any way dismissive in relation to that. However, I also need to be conscious of anything that I do being legal, equitable and consistent with that approach of equity of access. For example, if I was to include a PUP payment as an income disregard, why would the Deputy not wish me to include a lone parent's payment as an income disregard, a jobseeker's benefit which is the same principle, or a jobseeker's allowance? I need to make sure that I do not do anything that is not legal in the first instance and I also need to make sure that I do not do anything that is not equitable. My approach to this - I say this in a constructive fashion - is to see if the change-of-circumstances mechanism can be flexible and comprehensive and show enough commonsense to work through the individual cases. If that turns out not to be the case, I will look and see if there is some bespoke solution that can be arrived at.
At what point will the Minister be satisfied that the system that he is overseeing will meet all the requirements that he hopes it will meet?
That is a fair question. At present, we are monitoring it on a weekly basis. The figure I gave the House of 28,500 applications having been assessed and 26,000 being deemed eligible is a very high rate of eligibility for SUSI so far which reflects the reality we will see this year that most households' incomes are gone down and not up. This idea - the Deputy is not putting it forward - that families will ultimately end up being better off overall because of being on social welfare for the year will not turn out to be the case. That is my gut feeling. It seems to be what the evidence is showing me so far. We monitor on a weekly basis. I remain willing at any point to engage further with Government colleagues if there is a need for additional resources to provide additional supports to students but my engagement with SUSI and my officials seems to suggest to me that the change-of-circumstance mechanism is the route we should try first. I will continue to watch this and I will keep in close contact with the Deputy and the House on it.
