Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 25 May 2021
471. Deputy Jackie Cahill asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science if a person can apply for a SUSI grant based on the financial status of a family member (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [28151/21]
View answerThe objective of the statutory based student grant scheme is to provide additional assistance where parental income is below a certain threshold or, in the case of independent mature students, where the level of income of the student and his or her spouse warrants additional assistance by way of a grant.
For student grants purposes, students are categorised according to their circumstances either as students dependent on parents or a legal guardian, or as independent mature students.
A student may be assessed as an independent mature student if he or she has attained the age of 23 on the 1st of January of the year of first entry to an approved course or of re-entry following a break in studies of at least three years and is not ordinarily resident with his/her parents from the previous October. Otherwise he or she would continue to be assessed on the basis of parental income.
Only in exceptional cases, where compelling evidence of estrangement from parents/guardians is provided, can candidates who are under 23 be assessed without reference to their parents/guardians income or address, Article 21(3) (b) of the Scheme refers. Otherwise he or she is assessed as a dependent student for student grant purposes, i.e. assessed on the basis of the income and address of parents/legal guardians.
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 and subsequently to the Student Grants Appeals Board within the statutory timeframes.
