Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)
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This case concerns a mature student who is now in her late 20s. She is originally from my constituency and is now in the second year of a degree course in a university outside Dublin. She started her course in 2008 and applied for a higher education grant to Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council as a mature student. She was refused the grant on the grounds that she did not satisfy the residency requirement. When she appealed to the Department of Education and Science the decision to refuse the grant was upheld. I have made repeated representations to the Minister for Education and Science, and to Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, but to no avail which is why I am raising the issue here today.

This woman worked for approximately ten years. She started to work at 16. She paid her tax, social insurance, etc. She never claimed any social welfare payment from the State. In 2005 she decided to travel. She worked for a while in China, South East Asia and in Australia. While she was back home for brief spells at various times during those three years, she returned to Ireland in August 2008 to start her course in the autumn. She applied for the higher education grant and was informed that she did not satisfy the residency requirement and that she would have needed to have been living in Ireland prior to 1 October 2007.

There was a glimmer of hope in a letter that I got from the Minister for Education and Science on 14 July which stated that local authorities had the discretion to waive this requirement in exceptional circumstances. I pursued this with the county council and it replied, stating that it did not have discretion. The letter stated that the council would only have had such discretion if the person concerned had been out of the country for less than one year and because she was out of the country for more than three years, it was not possible for the county council to waive the requirement in her case. I went back to the Minister on the issue and he replied, stating that he did not have discretion and did not propose to make an exception in this case. This is ludicrous. There is a clear contradiction between what the Minister said - that the local authority had discretion - and the local authority's assertion that it did not have discretion. That is something that can be sorted out by means of a direction from the Minister to the county council, because he is the final arbiter in these cases.

The person in this case was born and reared in my constituency and has worked all her life in Ireland. She went away for a couple of years but she is being treated as though she has just arrived from Mars. The residency requirement is ludicrous in such a case. This woman has managed to get through the first year of her course with considerable difficulty. She is now in her second year and facing a crisis which may force her to withdraw from the course. If she does this, she will cost the State more, in terms of what she is entitled to claim in social welfare, than the value of the grant. Alternatively - this is the daftest aspect of the whole situation - having done a year and a half of the course, she would be entitled to start the course again, claim the grant and receive it because she would by then have been resident in Ireland since 1 October of the year before her application.

I suspect the Minister of State will read out the response I have repeatedly received from the Minister for Education and Science. I appreciate he must read out the script he has been given. However, when we have concluded this exchange, I ask him to discuss this with the Minister and ask him to reconsider this case. Not only is it ludicrous in its own terms and unfair to the young woman concerned, who will suffer hardship as a result, but the way this residence requirement is being applied in student grant cases such as this is quite absurd. It is unfair that a person who has contributed to the State and the Exchequer through payment of taxes through the years is being treated as though she were an absolute stranger who had never lived here before and had no connection with the country. The application of the residency requirement in such circumstances is inappropriate.

Conor Lenihan (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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I am replying to this matter on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Batt O'Keeffe.

I thank the Deputy for giving me an opportunity to outline the Department's position on the application by the student in question for funding under the higher education grants scheme. The Department funds four maintenance grant schemes for third level and further education students: the higher education grants scheme, the Vocational Education Committees' scholarship scheme, the third level maintenance grants scheme for trainees and the maintenance grant scheme for students attending post-leaving certificate courses. The higher education grants scheme is administered by the local authorities, while the other three schemes are administered by the Vocational Education Committees.

Under the terms of the maintenance grant schemes, grant assistance is awarded to students who meet the prescribed conditions of funding, including those relating to nationality, residency, means and previous academic attainment. The residency clause of the scheme requires, in the case of a candidate under the age of 23, that the candidate's parents or guardians have been resident in the administrative area of a local authority from 1 October of the previous year or, in the case of an independent mature candidate, that he or she has been resident in the administrative area of a local authority from the same date. The local authority has discretion to waive this requirement in exceptional circumstances. However, the type of situation in which the residency requirement is waived is, for example, one in which an independent mature candidate has missed the residency requirement by a relatively short period of time.

The candidate in question had been out of the country for a period of three years and four months and had only been resident in the country from August 2008. To meet the residency requirement of the scheme, the candidate would need to have been resident in the administrative area of the local authority from October 2007. In cases in which a candidate has been out of the country for a period of time of more than one year before commencing his or her course, irrespective of whether he or she can produce evidence of independent living prior to going abroad, he or she is not eligible to be considered under the residency clause of the scheme.

In this case, the decision on the candidate's eligibility for a third level grant was a matter for Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. Its initial decision - that the candidate did not satisfy the residency requirement of the higher education grants scheme - was communicated to the candidate on 13 October 2008. Following an initial appeal of this decision to the local authority, the county council wrote again to the candidate on 29 October 2008 to advise that the decision remained unchanged. On 28 November 2008, a notice of appeal was received from the candidate by the Department. The Department responded to the candidate on 15 December 2008, advising that as she did not meet the residency requirement prescribed under the higher education grants scheme for 2008, she was ineligible for financial assistance. On that basis, the Department upheld the original decision of Dun Laoghaire County Council and its subsequent decision on appeal.

In publishing the student grant schemes for 2009 and 2010 earlier this year, the Minister for Education and Science gave notice that it is intended to introduce a revised residency requirement of three out of the last five years, with effect from 2010-11, in accordance with the provisions of the Student Support Bill. This will allow for greater flexibility in meeting the residency requirement. The Deputy will appreciate that it is not open to the Minister, the Department or the assessing authorities to depart from the terms and conditions of the maintenance grants schemes in individual cases.