Michael Ring (Mayo, Fine Gael)
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Question 1111: To ask the Minister for Education and Science if the once-off benchmarking pay award to persons employed in local authorities is fully assessable as reckonable income for the purposes of the higher education grant scheme; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [24684/05]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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The assessment of means for all applicants under my Department's third level student maintenance grant schemes is based on gross income from all sources in the immediately preceding tax-year, with specified social welfare and health board payments being excluded from the calculation.

The general position in regard to once-off payments is that part or all, as the case may be, of the payment can only be excluded from the reckonable income for 2004 on production of an amended P21 from the tax office confirming the amount of the payment appropriate to that tax year. My Department understands that the P21 will only be amended by the tax office if the client in question provides a letter from his employer confirming the breakdown of the benchmarking payment and the year(s) to which it is appropriate.

In the event that it is confirmed, in the case referred to by the Deputy, that only a portion of the benchmarking payment is attributable to the particular tax year under review, 2004, only that portion will be taken in account for the purposes of the 2005-06 grant application.