Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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90. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the status of an application by a person (details supplied) under the student universal support Ireland grant scheme; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12310/16]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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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.

Classification as an independent mature student has to be carefully considered with regard to two fundamental criteria. Firstly, the applicant must be a "mature" student, i.e. he/she must be aged 23 or over on 1st of January of the year of first entry to an approved course. Secondly, because the majority of third level students move away from home to go to college and continue to be supported by their parents, grant applicants claiming mature independent status must demonstrate that, in addition to meeting the requirement as a "mature student", they have been genuinely self-supporting and living independently for a period of time before commencing their studies.

In practice, what this means is that an applicant entering college as a genuine mature student may, if also demonstrably self-supporting and living independently, be assessed for grant support on the basis of his/her own means and that of any spouse or partner, but independent of parental means.