asked the Minister for Education if she will consider allocating a higher education grant to a person (details supplied) in County Meath, who is a fifth year medical student, because of her exceptional circumstances.
Written Answers. - Meath Education Grant Application.
855.
The higher education grants scheme, including the means test conditions, applicable to a candidate is the scheme of the year in which the candidate qualified for a grant on the basis of academic attainment at the leaving certificate examination.
The person referred to in the question from the Deputy qualified academically in accordance with the terms of the 1979 scheme but was ineligible for a grant on grounds of means.
The higher education grants scheme contains a provision which permits a candidate who was previously ineligible solely on grounds of means to reapply for grant where the means requirements of the relevant scheme, 1979 in this case, would subsequently be fulfilled because of a deterioration in the financial circumstances in the case of the applicant.
Accordingly, if the person in question feels that, due to a decrease in family circumstances, the means test conditions of the 1979 scheme would now be fulfilled in her case, she should contact her local county council, the body which administers the scheme.