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Grant Payments

Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 24 June 2021

Thursday, 24 June 2021

Questions (351)

Rose Conway-Walsh

Question:

351. Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science the estimated cost to the Exchequer of increasing the SUSI income bracket no maintenance, 50% student contribution by 10, 20, 30 and 40 %, respectively; the number of additional recipients who would be brought within the bracket as a result; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34024/21]

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Written answers

The Deputy will be aware that there are various income thresholds used depending on the type of grant, family size etc. While SUSI has statistics on those students who have applied for grant support and can estimate with some degree of certainty, what impact changes to the thresholds might have for those students on lower income levels, the accuracy of its estimates become less reliable at the higher income levels. Prospective applicants on higher incomes may not have applied for support as their income was above the relevant threshold. As such, it is not possible to accurately cost the number of additional students who may qualify for support, if the thresholds are increased.

Allowing for the limitations regarding the accuracy of the costings, the estimated cost of increasing the SUSI income bracket of no maintenance, 50% student contribution by 10% and the number of additional recipients would result in the following. (Please note data used is 2019-20 figures with applied requested changes.)

- Increase of 4000 to 5000 additional recipients based on SUSI applications received for the  2019/20 academic year.

- Increase in cost to the exchequer would be in the region of €6-€7 million.

The above figures do not include any changes to the income thresholds for the special rate of maintenance grants which are linked to long-term social welfare payments nor do they include any changes to the post-graduate income thresholds.

 The Programme for Government contains commitments to, amongst other things, review SUSI eligibility criteria, adjacency rates and postgraduate grant supports. The review of the Student Grant Scheme is underway with over 250 submissions received via the public consultation process and over 9,000 survey responses were received through an online survey process. It is anticipated that the SUSI review will be completed later this year and will inform policy priorities for the next Estimates process and future considerations regarding the development of student grant policy.  At this point I cannot pre-empt the outcome of the review to indicate when any proposed changes will come into effect. 

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