Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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Question 260: To ask the Minister for Education and Science if a higher education grant will be awarded to a person (details supplied) in County Louth; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [34730/06]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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Under the terms of my Department's 2006 Third Level Student Maintenance Grant Schemes the position is that, generally speaking, students who are entering approved courses for the first time are eligible for grants where they satisfy the prescribed conditions with regard to age, residence, means, nationality and previous academic attainment. A mature student is defined for the purposes of the schemes as a candidate who is at least 23 years of age on the 1st January of the year of entry or re-entry to an approved course.

Mature students are categorised as either independent mature students or mature students dependent on parents. An independent mature student is defined as meaning a mature student who was not ordinarily resident at home with his/her parents from the October preceding their entry to an approved course. Independent mature students are assessed without reference to either their parents' income or address.

When assessing the means of students other than independent mature students, the means test provision of the scheme specifies that the students' means and those of their parents or guardians must be below a prescribed limit. This provision requires that parental income be taken into account irrespective of the individual circumstances in any case where the student is not an independent mature student.

It is understood from Co. Louth VEC, the assessing authority in this case, that the candidate referred to by the Deputy is under 23 and that her parents are separated. The candidate is not eligible for the maintenance grant as the reckonable income in this case — i.e. the combined income from her mother's employment and her own Department of Social and Family Affairs payment exceed the prescribed limit for the 2005 tax year as set out in the grant scheme.

I regret that it is not possible to allow grant aid where reckonable income exceeds the prescribed limits irrespective of the particular circumstances.

Apart from the funding provided through the Student Support Maintenance Grant Schemes, financial assistance is also available from my Department through the Student Assistance Fund which is administered by the National Office for Equity of Access to Third Level Education (National Office). The objective of the Fund, which is ESF-aided, is to assist students in a sensitive and compassionate manner who might otherwise, due to their financial circumstances, be unable to continue their third level studies. Further information on this fund is available from the relevant third institutions.

The Deputy will appreciate that the terms of the schemes are of general application and it is not open to me to make exceptions in individual cases.