Billy Kelleher (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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162. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if her Department will assist a lone parent (details supplied) who can no longer receive funding to complete a postgraduate course due to the removal of the one-parent family payment, the removal of that person's entitlement to the back-to-education allowance and the special rate of grant for disadvantaged students, and the removal by her Department of maintenance grants for new postgraduate students from the 2012-13 academic year. [12210/15]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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New students entering postgraduate courses from the 2012/13 academic year onwards are not entitled to maintenance payments under the Student Grant Scheme. Those who meet the qualifying conditions for the special rate of grant under the Student Grant Scheme are eligible to have their post-graduate tuition fees paid up to the maximum fee limit of €6,270.

The qualifying criteria for the special rate of maintenance grant, in the 2014/15 academic year, as specified under the 2014 student grant scheme is as follows:

1. The student must qualify for the standard rate of grant;2. Total reckonable income, after income disregards and Child Dependant Increase(s) are excluded, must not exceed €22,703;3. As at 31st December, 2013, the reckonable income must include one of the eligible long-term social welfare payments prescribed in the Student Grant Scheme.

It is important to note that the prescribed eligible social welfare payments extend beyond those of the One Parent Family Payment and the Back to Education Allowance referred to by the Deputy.

It is a matter for the Department of Social Protection to determine entitlement to an alternative social welfare payment, of the person referred to by the Deputy, following the period of eligibility to the One Parent Family Payment.