Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 8 July 2021
33. Deputy Bríd Smith asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science if it will be ensured that students who qualified for the pandemic unemployment payment can have €4,500 disregarded in line with the normal treatment of payments for holiday work or the employment wage subsidy scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36660/21]
View answerThe principal support provided by my 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 SUSI to determine. For the 2021/22 academic year, student grant applications will be assessed based on gross income from all sources for the reference period 1st January 2020 to 31st December 2020.
The Social Welfare (Covid-19) (Amendment) Act 2020 establishes the COVID-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment (PUP) as a social insurance benefit scheme separate from other social protection statutory schemes including the Supplementary Welfare Allowance and Jobseeker Allowance and Jobseeker Benefit schemes.
The PUP payment has been treated as reckonable income for the SUSI means assessment process since it was introduced in March 2020. This means that the Covid-19 payment is treated in a similar fashion to other Department of 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, if a student or party to their application experiences a change in circumstances that is not a temporary change and is likely to continue for the foreseeable future, they can apply to have their application assessed under the change in circumstances provision of the relevant Student Grant Scheme. The income of all parties to the application will be assessed or reassessed on current income and applicants may also be asked to provide evidence of same. This is a well-established procedure.
As per Article 22(5)(b) of the Student Grant Scheme 2021, income from an applicant’s employment which represents holiday earnings outside of term time but within the reference period, subject to a maximum of €4,500, can be deducted from the total reckonable income assessed. This holiday earnings disregard under the Student Grant Scheme can only be applied to income from employment earned by the student in the manner described.
The Deputy will be aware that restrictions were eased during the summer months and the Christmas period of 2020 which enabled many students to return to work. Those students, who engaged in work during non-term times when restrictions were eased in 2020, can avail of the holiday earnings provision and have that income excluded from their reckonable income up to the value of €4,500 for the 2021/22 grant scheme.
