Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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224. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she will consider removing a qualifying condition that applicants must have lived here for three out of the past five years for returning emigrants who meet the habitual residence condition under social welfare which qualifies them for jobseeker's allowance and back to education, as it is clearly a contradiction of their residency status by two Departments. [25311/15]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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As the Deputy will be aware the Exchequer funds tuition fees costs in respect of eligible students who are pursuing full-time undergraduate courses of study under my Department's Free Fees Initiative. The main conditions of the scheme are that students must be first-time undergraduates, hold inter alia EU/EEA/Swiss nationality in their own right, and have been ordinarily resident in an EU/EEA/Swiss state for at least three of the five years preceding their entry to an approved third level course.

There are no plans to amend the residency requirement of the Free Fees Initiative at present.

It should be noted that in the case of students who do not meet the residency clause, higher education institutions have been requested to charge the more moderate EU fee to EU/EEA/Swiss nationals who have completed at least five academic years of study (Primary or Post-Primary level) in the EU/EEA or Switzerland.