James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)

I have listened to what the Deputy has said and I have taken note. He might want to follow up with me on that case as well. The first thing I would say, before I and my Department get involved, is that the student should consider appealing if they have not done so already. Indeed, I would advise any student who feels they have been wrongly denied a grant, or not had their correct level of grant funding applied, to access the appeals mechanism. I would refer any student who is dissatisfied to the relevant website, studentgrantappeals.ie, because there is a whole framework in place there. There is a 30-day window for such cases. I am not sure how far on this particular case is, but it might be of interest to the House in general to be aware of that facility. There is also a support webline, support@susi.ie. They have a phone number which can be accessed as well. There are a number of different ways in which SUSI will respond to individual cases. It may be appropriate for the Deputy's constituent who wishes to make a case with regard to mileage to consider an appeal as well. It is up to the individual student and family, but that is something could be looked at.

In terms of the inheritance, the Deputy stated that the amount was modest. I do not know what the figure is - we can look into it in due course - but there are several different disregards in the system, such as holiday income, bursaries and grants from other sources. A number of different disregards are included. It is quite a complex system in terms of how the grants are considered, whether a student is eligible, what other income is there and what other payments they may be in receipt of. I do not know whether the particular case the Deputy mentions would satisfy one of those disregards. It may do; it may not. Certainly, it would with luck. However, every effort is made to ensure that when a student receives financial support towards their educational journey from other sources with the intention of helping them to achieve an educational goal, it is not punitive in terms of their subsequent support. We would not want to have one robbing Peter to pay Paul; they should be combined.

If the Deputy wants to advise his constituent in the first instance to consider appealing if they have not already, he should look at the details of it. Then if the Deputy wants to engage with me on that particular case as well, I would be happy to look into it.

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