Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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275. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the estimated cost of amending the criteria for the Student Universal Support Ireland grant scheme to ensure students living further than 30 km from their college qualify for the non-adjacent rate of grant payment. [29348/15]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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In order to carry out the exercise requested by the Deputy, related to the estimated cost of reducing the qualifying distance for the non-adjacent rate of grant from 45km to 30km, we would need to establish how many students would come within the ranges put forward by the Deputy. The Deputy will appreciate that the percentage split between adjacent and non-adjacent can fluctuate from one year to another as some students graduate and new applicants come into grant. It is, therefore, difficult to quantify the cost of amending the criteria for eligibility, for the award of the non-adjacent rate of grant, to 30 kilometres due to the fact that each individual's circumstances are different and any impact would affect an unknown cohort of new applicants applying to SUSI at some future date. Hence the Deputy will appreciate that the information requested by the Deputy is not readily available.