Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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104. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the way in which the SUSI grant is calculated (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40866/18]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The means test arrangements of the Student Grant Scheme are applied nationally. Student grant applications are means tested on gross income from all sources earned inside and outside the State within a specified reference period. In the case of both employed and self-employed applicants, gross income, before deduction of income tax or universal social charge, is assessed with certain specified social welfare and health service executive payments excluded. Therefore, all income is assessed from the same starting point, eliminating any distortion which might arise from different spending decisions in different households.

The Student Grant Scheme provides for higher income thresholds for larger families. In addition to this, further increases in the income thresholds are provided for where additional family members are attending further and higher education at the same time. The 2018 Scheme also allows students to disregard holiday earnings up to €4,500 from the assessment of reckonable income.