Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The key issue in the response is that from next year the assessment on whether a person is entitled to a maintenance grant will be done on the basis of his or her income and assets. The next assertion is that the change will not affect the farming community in particular. Unfortunately, the reality is that it will. If assets and farm land are taken into account, farming households of modest incomes will find themselves unable to qualify for a student grant. The Government is putting such families in a position where they must decide whether to sell some of their land in order to fund their children through college because a student maintenance grant will not be available to them in spite of having a low income. The way we should approach the issue is simple; we must ensure there is a fair way of assessing everyone's income. The system should be based on one's real income, not on an asset which is being used to generate income.

The Minister of State needs to revisit this issue and work with the Minister, Deputy Quinn, to ensure there is an understanding of what happens on farms across the country on a daily basis and of the reality of the level of the average farm income, which applies to most farm incomes, and ensure that the farming community is treated as fairly as everyone else. If we take the approach the Minister, Deputy Quinn, is planning, the farming community will be unfairly targeted because they will be assessed not only on their income, but also on a notional value of their land which they use to derive an income. If the Minister wants to tax people's land, taxes are already in place in terms of inheritance tax and capital gains tax which come into play when land is sold. However, while land is being held by the farming household it is being used to derive an income and it is that income that should be used to decide whether a family has the means to send their child to college independently or whether their child will need a student grant to ensure he or she has the same access to third level education as anybody from any other income background.

I ask the Minister to State to talk to the Minister, Deputy Quinn, about this. I ask the Labour and the Fine Gael parties to rethink this approach because what they propose to do will unfairly target the farming community and many in the self-employed community and business community.

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