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

Does the Minister stand by earlier comments on this issue he made on "Newstalk Breakfast" in March 2011, when he said that he wanted to reform the way in which student grants would operate and that, until now, there had been a bias towards the self-employed and the agricultural community, who were able to manipulate their income so their children could avail of grants? Does the Minister stand by that statement? If he does, can he outline how these people manipulated their incomes? If manipulation was going on, Fianna Fáil would have no problem dealing with it. It is unacceptable, however, that the Minister is now attaching a notional income to a productive asset that people use to derive an income, often a very modest one. The average farm income in 2011, which was a very good year, was €24,000.

See this speech in context