Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Aindrias Moynihan for the question. SUSI uses Google Maps. We can certainly take on board what the Deputy has just said. Budget 2011 provided for a number of student grant measures which came into effect for 2011-12. These included the change in the assessment of the qualifying distance criterion for the non-adjacent rate of grant from 24 km to 45 km. The 24 km criterion was originally set in 1968 and had not been updated in more than 40 years. Since then, significant improvements have taken place in the road and rail network and it is considered that the revised distance criterion is more consistent with the type of distances that students may legitimately be expected to commute to college. I hear what the Deputy has asked about how we measure the distance but it is done using Google Maps and not by using a postcode.

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