Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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118. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if the additional income provided to students that were working part-time and are now in receipt of the pandemic unemployment payment will be factored into their income eligibility for student grants under SUSI in 2021. [9783/20]

Joe McHugh (Donegal, Fine Gael)
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The Covid-19 payment will be treated as reckonable income for the SUSI means assessment process. This will mean that the Covid-19 payment will be treated in a similar fashion to other Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection payments (e.g. Jobseekers Benefit & Allowance), thus ensuring a consistency of approach and an equitable treatment of students and their families in the SUSI means assessment process. This approach is entirely consistent with well-established practice by SUSI and is in accordance with the statutory provisions of the scheme.

However, if a student or party to their application experiences a change in circumstances that is not a temporary change and is likely to continue for the foreseeable future they can apply to SUSI to have their application assessed under the change in circumstances provision.

In the case of a change of circumstances all household income, and not just the income of the person experiencing the change, will be assessed/reassessed on the basis of the current year (2020). Any award or adjustment will take effect from the month in which the change occurred.This provision may benefit some students whose income has fallen in 2020 due to Covid-19 issues.