Timmy Dooley (Clare, Fianna Fail)
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232. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the reason a married 41 year old mother of two who has returned with her husband and children to live with her mother due to financial hardship is being assessed for a mature student grant on the basis of her mother's income; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [10881/15]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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Under the terms of the student grant scheme, grant assistance is awarded to students who meet the prescribed conditions of funding, including those relating to nationality, residency, previous academic attainment and means.

The Deputy will appreciate that, in the absence of all of the relevant details that would be contained in an individual's application form and supporting documentation, it is not possible to say whether or not a particular student would qualify for a grant.

For student grants purposes, students are categorised according to their circumstances either as students dependent on parents or a legal guardian, or as independent mature students.

A student may be assessed as an independent mature student if he or she has attained the age of 23 on the 1st of January of the year of first entry to an approved course or of re-entry following a break in studies of at least three years and is not ordinarily resident with his/her parents from the previous October. Otherwise he or she would continue to be assessed on the basis of parental income.

The eligibility of the individual to which the Deputy refers is a matter for SUSI (Student Universal Support Ireland) to determine; upon receipt of the relevant application form and supporting documentation.