Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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1239. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the estimated cost to increase student grants to their highest historical levels in real inflation-adjusted terms. [41228/21]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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It is not possible to definitively calculate the estimates costs as requested in light of the various adjustments that have been made to the student grant system since 2008, and in particularly the demographic changes that have taken place.

To put it in context, in 2008/09 there were 57,261 students who benefitted from grant support at a cost of €264m, whereas in 2020/21 there were over 74,000 students in receipt of grant support at a cost of €370m.

It is however, estimated that it would cost in excess of €100m to reverse all of the adjustments that have been made to the student grant scheme since 2008.

The Programme for Government contains commitments to, amongst other things, review SUSI eligibility criteria, adjacency rates and postgraduate grant supports. The review of the Student Grant Scheme is underway with over 250 submissions received via the public consultation process and over 9,000 survey responses were received through an online survey process. It is anticipated that the SUSI review will be completed later this year and will inform policy priorities for the next Estimates process and future considerations regarding the development of student grant policy. At this point I cannot pre-empt the outcome of the review to indicate when any proposed changes will come into effect.