Carol Nolan (Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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513. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he will establish clear guidelines with SUSI on the issue of estrangement for the purposes of the student grant; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26219/16]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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Cases of genuine estrangement are relatively rare and will almost always involve exceptional circumstances unique to a particular family situation. The scheme does not stipulate precisely how an awarding authority satisfies itself that such circumstances prevail. This is to allow the awarding authority sufficient flexibility to assess the evidence of irrevocable estrangement in each individual case.

It is difficult to legislate for all possible scenarios that can lead to genuine estrangement cases. Guidelines as to how students can demonstrate estrangement will, by their very nature, restrict the assessment of estrangement cases to those that fall within these guidelines. Such restrictions may not be in the best interest of students genuinely in this situation.

It is important that scarce public resources are targeted at those students who are genuinely in need.