Mr. Philip Connolly:

I have covered the reduction in the budget. I will go into more detail if the Deputy requires. It is important to state, however, that it is a demand-led scheme and it will go up and down based on the number of applications. This year the number of applications is expected to decrease again.

Turning to postgraduates, maintenance grants were reintroduced in 2017-18. Some 1,051 postgraduate students received grants in that year, and 1,184 in 2018-19. In 2019-20, to date, some 859 students are receiving grants.