James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)

I am aware of the issue which has been raised with me by the student unions and I have come across this in my review of the different schemes. It is fair to ask and test this to see what is appropriate.

The Deputy mentioned that one of the families she had been in contact with had stated the difficulty in assessing and establishing that independence. Documentation accepted by SUSI includes: a letter confirming the address is registered with the RTB, if they are renting a property; a local authority lease agreement or a letter to confirm they are renting under the RAS scheme; a letter on headed paper from a rental agency confirming the tenancy - these are all in situations where the individual is living outside the family home; a letter to confirm the receipt of rental allowance; or a utility bill in the applicants name - this could be something like a phone bill, broadband bill, gas bill, utility bill, etc. Those items can be submitted as evidence that a student is living apart. The real difficulty arises in some cases where they are not living apart; they are living at the family home but are estranged and may not have the opportunity to move out, although they may wish to.

I accept this is not straightforward and these are the issues we must examine in the options paper to see what is appropriate. It may not be appropriate to give a blanket exemption because this may not be a good use of resources but it is something on which we need to strike the right balance.

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