Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister. I know he agrees it is unacceptable that students would be pushed out and denied SUSI grants because they accepted the pandemic unemployment payment. I would treat it as an exceptional needs payment. Nobody should be penalised for accepting the pandemic unemployment payment, particularly not working students who lost their jobs because of the pandemic. This is where equality comes into it. If these students were working as normal or under the employment wage subsidy scheme they would be entitled to deduct holiday earnings of €4,500 when applying to SUSI. At the very least, this deduction should be applied to the pandemic unemployment payment for students. At a committee meeting, I highlighted to the Minister that I thought it was strange the demand for SUSI this year was in line with 2019 despite the State being in lockdown for much of the year and so many people being out of work. This only adds up if many other students will be pushed out of qualifying for SUSI because of accepting the pandemic unemployment payment when they lost their employment.

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