Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

That this issue has arisen is probably an unintended consequence of the fact that more people are being naturalised. Thanks to the efforts of the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Shatter, many more people are being naturalised as Irish citizens. He has broken the bottlenecks that existed in the system and, as a consequence, the issue the Deputies have raised might well have been extenuated in some cases. That many more people have become Irish citizens is a good thing.

My understanding is that where a young person goes into the system and in the course of their studies their parent becomes naturalised, they apply either for naturalisation themselves or for leave to remain, which is the normal immigration standard.

According to my notes, where a student's leave to remain in the State is determined by reference to the conditions attached to their parents' initial permission to reside, that condition applies for the student even after his or her parents are naturalised and until such a time as a student naturalises himself or herself. The notes go on to state that students who qualified for a grant at the commencement of their studies, as they satisfied one of the conditions as set out in the student support regulations, would qualify for a grant following their parents' naturalisation. As one or both of their parents has become an Irish citizen, they then apply in their own right because they are over the age, and according to my information, whatever they had should remain.

The Deputies have put on the record information that this is not the case, so I think it is a case of SUSI officials, the Minister and his colleagues in the Department getting together and seeing whether there are some unintended consequences that were not picked up in the original regulations, because this should not be happening and I fully agree with the Deputies that this is fundamentally unfair. The Minister for Education and Skills, being a good and honest man, will take this issue very seriously and see whether a solution can be found on a small number of cases that may have come to the Deputies' attention.

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