Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 14 December 2022
203. Deputy Neale Richmond asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science his views on whether there is room for progress in the SUSI application process for those students who are estranged from their parents or are from single-parent households; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [62544/22]
View answerThe decision on eligibility for a student grant is a matter, in the first instance, for the centralised student grant awarding authority SUSI (Student Universal Support Ireland) to determine.
For student grant 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 student (i.e. assessed without reference to parental income and address) if he/she has attained the age of 23 on the 1st of January of the year of first entry to an approved course and is not ordinarily resident with his/her parents from the previous 1st October. Otherwise, he/she would be assessed as a dependent student, i.e., assessed with reference to parental income and address.
Article 21(3) (b) of the Scheme states candidates who are under 23 can be assessed without reference to their parents/guardians income or address in exceptional circumstances. This is an issue raised with me frequently and I intend to examine it in 2023.
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. Where an individual applicant has had an appeal turned down in writing by an appeals officer in SUSI and remains of the view that the scheme has not been interpreted correctly in his/her case, an appeal may be submitted to the independent Student Grants Appeals Board within the required time frame (i.e. not later than 30 days after the notification of the determination of the appeals officer to the applicant). Such appeals can be made by the appellant on line via www.studentgrantappeals.ie.
