Gay Mitchell
Ceist:160 Mr. G. Mitchell asked the Minister for Education and Science if he will review the rules governing the payment of grants for persons such as a person (details supplied) in Dublin 12. [25776/99]
Written Answers. - Higher Education Grants.
The higher education grant schemes operate under the Local Authorities (Higher Education Grants) Acts, 1968 to 1992. These Acts define a mature student to mean a person of not less than 23 years of age, or such other age as may stand specified for the time being in regulations made by the Minister with the consent of the Minister for Finance, who have secured places in approved institutions and have reached that age on the 1 January, or such other date as may be prescribed from time to time by the Minister with the consent of the Minister for Finance, in the year of entry to such institutions. The Acts further provide, inter alia, for the making of grants to mature students whose means and those of their parents, where the mature students are dependent on their parents, and the means of their spouses, if any, do not exceed prescribed limits.
When assessing the means of students other that mature students, the Acts specify that the students' means and those of their parents or guardians must be below a prescribed limit. This provision requires that parental income be taken into account irrespective of the individual circumstances in any case where the student is not a mature student.
The schemes further provide that maintenance grants are payable at either adjacent or non-adjacent rates. The adjacent rate of maintenance grant is payable where the grant-holder's normal residence is 15 miles or less from the college, which he or she is attending. The non-adjacent rate of maintenance grant is payable in all other cases.
I understand from Dublin Corporation, the body statutorily entrusted with the administration of the higher education grants scheme, that the student to whom the Deputy refers was not aged 23 years on 1 January 1997, the year he commenced his third level studies, and that his normal residence is less than 15 miles from the college that he is attending. Accordingly, on the basis of the reckonable income of the candidate and his parents, he was correctly awarded a maintenance grant at the adjacent rate.