Brendan Griffin (Kerry, Fine Gael)
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622. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills his views on a matter in relation to SUSI reform (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10972/21]

Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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624. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if a course (details supplied) will be included in SUSI reform; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11028/21]

James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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625. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills his plans to include graduate entry medicine in the SUSI reform; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11086/21]

Catherine Connolly (Galway West, Independent)
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632. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills his plans to include graduate entry medicine in the promised SUSI review given that students of this course must pay high fees but are not eligible for SUSI funding; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11350/21]

Pádraig O'Sullivan (Cork North Central, Fianna Fail)
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641. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the progress being made on the review of the SUSI scheme; the changes that have been identified; if the new criteria for the scheme will be available to students making their applications in 2021; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [11667/21]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 622, 624, 625, 632 and 641 together.

Under the terms of the Student Grant Scheme, grant assistance is awarded to students attending an approved course in an approved institution who meet the prescribed conditions of funding, including those relating to nationality, residency, previous academic attainment and means.

To satisfy the terms and conditions of the Student Grant Scheme in relation to progression, a student must be moving from year to year within a course, having successfully completed the previous year or be transferring from one course to another where the award for the subsequent course is of a higher level than the previous course.

Students pursuing GEM programmes do so as second degree courses and consequently are not eligible for free fees funding or for student grants. However, in order to widen access to GEM programmes, and give assistance towards the financial burden on each student pursuing these programmes, the fees of participating EU students are partly subsidised by the State via the Higher Education Authority (HEA).

Institutions participating in the graduate medical programme have been requested to provide accompanying services and supports to facilitate the participation of disadvantaged students in the programme. Details of these services and supports are available from the relevant institution.

The Programme for Government contains commitments to, among other things, review SUSI eligibility criteria, adjacency rates and postgraduate grant supports.

The review of the Student Grant Scheme has just commenced and is due to report in Summer 2021. My Department is overseeing the implementation of the review through a steering group with student representation as well as representation from SUSI. Stakeholders in the student grant system will be invited to provide contributions via a formal submission process in the coming weeks. These submissions will be considered in the context of the parameters of the Programme for Government commitments, whilst recognising that the scheme operates in the context of competing educational priorities and limited public funding. The aim of the student grant scheme is to make a contribution to the cost of going to college; covering the full cost has never been a feasible option. At this point I cannot pre-empt the outcome of the review to indicate when any proposed changes will come into effect.

The Student Grant Scheme and Student Support Regulations for the 2021/22 academic year will be published towards the end of March/early April 2021. The opening of SUSI's online grant application system will coincide with the publication of the scheme. Grant applications are submitted online via www.susi.ie. Further information in relation to student grant assistance is also available from this website. The telephone number for SUSI’s Helpdesk is 0761 087 874.

Students on graduate entry medicine courses may be eligible to apply to the Student Assistance Fund for financial support. The SAF guidelines provide that students with a previous higher education qualification at the same NFQ level, or who, in the past, attended higher education without ultimately obtaining a qualification, may be considered for support on a case-by-case basis and subject to available funding.

In addition, tax relief at the standard rate of tax may also be available in respect of tuition fees paid for approved courses at approved colleges of higher education. Further information on this tax relief is available from a student's local Tax Office or from the Revenue Commissioners website, www.revenue.ie

Budget 2021 provided for enhanced postgraduate supports from next year including the fee grant amount rising from €2,000 to €3,500 and the income threshold for eligibility for these grants to increase from €31,500, now €54,240. This is an initial step in meeting part of the Government’s commitments regarding SUSI grant support.

Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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623. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if pandemic unemployment payments to parents of applicants will be exempted from SUSI considerations. [11022/21]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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Under the Student Grant Scheme, grant assistance is available to eligible students attending an approved course in an approved institution who meet the terms and conditions of funding, including those relating to residency, means, nationality and previous academic attainment.

The decision on eligibility for a student grant is a matter, in the first instance, for SUSI to determine. For the 2020/21 academic year, student grant applications will be assessed based on gross income from all sources for the period 1st January 2019 to 31st December 2019.

The Social Welfare (Covid-19) (Amendment) Act 2020 establishes the COVID-19 Pandemic Unemployment Payment as a social insurance benefit scheme separate from other social protection statutory schemes including the Supplementary Welfare Allowance and Jobseeker Allowance and Jobseeker Benefit schemes.

For student grant purposes the Covid-19 payment has been treated as reckonable income for the SUSI means assessment process since it was introduced in March 2020. This means that the Covid-19 payment is treated in a similar fashion to other Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection payments such as Jobseekers Benefit/Allowance, thus ensuring a consistency of approach and an equitable treatment of students and their families in the SUSI means assessment process.

All applications are assessed nationally with reference to the terms and conditions of the relevant student grant scheme. The terms and conditions of funding are applied impartially to all applicants. 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 have their application assessed under the change in circumstances provision of the relevant Student Grant Scheme. The income of all parties to the application will be assessed or reassessed on the current year (2020) and they may also be asked to provide evidence of the current year’s (2020) income.

However, as the Deputy is aware, the Programme for Government commits to a review into the impact of SUSI regarding the impact of Covid and this is currently underway.