Mr. Bryan O'Mahony:

I was an education officer in Waterford and I experienced estrangement cases. As academic affairs officer with USI, numerous officers came to me and looked for support on how they can get around the stringent criteria that has been put in place by SUSI. Last year, SUSI came to us and told us there are so many different ways for students to get around estrangement but I have not seen any sort of list to support students in finding that documentation. If students are estranged from their parents and are post-18-years-old, they are not going to have a Tusla referral or they will not have Garda letters or anything like that because they may not have gone through a formal process.

Post the age of 18, an argument can happen and you can fall out with your family resulting in estrangement. What kind of formal procedures can you use? You are not going to file a report with the gardaí because you fell out with your parents. There are other stringent kinds of cases where there might be financial coercive control by parents and stuff like that. Time and again students have come to us looking for advice on how to get the documents but we cannot give any advice on estrangement because the criteria are quite strict and there is no flexibility with SUSI saying something makes sense and it will look at the situation. These are the criteria and if you do not meet them, unfortunately you will not be able to avail of SUSI and avail of college.