Ulick Burke (Fine Gael)

I support the call by Senator Brian Hayes on the Minister for Education and Science to come to the House to clarify the SSIA issue. The interest accruing on such accounts is being taken into account by local authorities and vocational education committees in assessing the income of parents of students seeking maintenance grants. As far back as April, people who had not finalised their applications for one reason or another were asked to project the interest that would accrue on their SSIAs prior to the decision of the local authority on their grants. There is no doubt the local authorities and VECs are being forced to assess SSIAs as part of the income within the guidelines for the means test on grants. It is a scandal. We realised two years ago that the then Minister for Education and Science intended to scrap all such grants for third level and we now know that this is a way of hitting back discreetly, as the Minister may think. I am fully supportive of Senator Brian Hayes's request that the Minister for Education and Science come to the House.

On a related issue——