John Cummins (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for coming to the House for what I feel is a very important Commencement matter, which is the eligibility of students for the SUSI grant if they take on additional work during the summer period.

As he will be aware, many students rely heavily on the SUSI grant to assist them in getting through college. I commend him on the changes that he has brought forward, which mean that from September all student grants will increase by €200 and the non-adjacent rate will reduce to 30 km, meaning that many students will see their grant increase by 30%. He has also increased the income eligibility thresholds to ensure that more students qualify. It is this very point that I want to elaborate on as part of my Commencement matter.

Under the current rules for assessing income from employment for a SUSI grant, students can earn a maximum of €4,500 holiday earnings for outside of term-time employment. However, the hotel, tourism and hospitality sectors face acute staffing challenges, particularly this summer. The anecdotal evidence that I have received from these sectors reveal that students are telling employers that they cannot work additional hours during the summer for fear of losing their SUSI grant for the 2023-24 academic year. That is a perfectly legitimate fear for students who rely on the grant to assist them to get through college. With the arbitrary income disregard for students being set at €4,500, we have created a perverse disincentive to take on additional work this summer when the survival of many businesses rely on these very same students.

Rather than penalise students who take on additional working hours during holiday periods, we should reward them by exempting income earned during college holiday periods like summer and Christmas. At the very least, the income disregard should be increased considerably from €4,500 to take account of the wage increases that have happened in recent years, inflation and the acute staff shortages in the economy that I have referenced. Students should not fear taking on additional work during the busy summer period because it may affect their grant in subsequent years.

I genuinely believe my proposal is realistic and sensible, and I was delighted to bring it to a recent meeting of our Fine Gael parliamentary party. I thank the Minister for his work on this matter and for taking my proposal seriously. He has engaged widely with students' unions and business representative organisations around this matter. I also know that he is actively working with his officials on this proposal. However, I stress the importance of not only an early decision but a communications and PR campaign around changes that may be made so that students, and employers, are aware of them now because today is 1 June 1 and the summer is upon us.

I believe that flexibility on this matter would be a win-win for all concerned. It would encourage students to take on additional work that, in turn, would support the tourism and hospitality sectors. Most importantly, the initiative would put more money in the pockets of students without them having to worry about how additional work would affect their eligibility for a SUSI grant in future academic years.