Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 8 February 2022
123. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science the number of persons who applied for a SUSI grant in each of the past ten years by county in tabular form. [6314/22]
View answerThe principal support provided by my Department in financial terms is the Student Grant Scheme, which provides grant assistance to students attending an approved course in an approved institution who meet the prescribed eligibility criteria, including those relating to nationality, residency, previous academic attainment and means.
Student Universal Support Ireland (SUSI) is the single grant awarding authority for student grants and began processing grants for new first year applicants for the 2012/2013 Academic Year while renewal applications remained the responsibility of the local awarding authorities until these students completed their studies. The first year that SUSI processed all applications was for the 2015/2016 Academic year.
This is a demand led scheme. As the Deputy will see from the table the number of grant applications fluctuate from year to year, for example in 2020/21 applications increased by circa 5,000. This is likely to be explained due to the financial impact of COVID.
The changes I announced in Budget 2022, to increase certain income threshold eligibility criteria for those applying for a SUSI grant is expected to result in an increased number of grant applications from the 2022/23 academic year onwards.
The information in the table I am providing relates to students who have applied for a grant from SUSI , in each of the past ten years, broken down by County, is as follows.
Applications to SUSI by Home Address County for years since 2012, data as 28/01/2022
* These years do NOT include all students as SUSI only began to receive new applications during this period.
