Ivana Bacik (Dublin Bay South, Labour)
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722. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the estimated cost of restoring the SUSI grant back to pre-2011 budget rates. [14559/22]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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It is not possible to definitively estimate the full year cost of restoring the SUSI grant scheme to pre-2011 levels.

To put it in context, in 2010/11 there were 71,532 students who benefitted from grant support at a cost of €355m, whereas in 2020/21  there were 74,755 students in receipt of grant support at a cost of €363m.

In the intervening years we have centralised the student grant scheme (replacing four separate schemes and sixty six awarding authorities with one scheme administered by a centralised awarding authority), had a complete turnover of students, income levels have changed and a number of changes have been made to the annual schemes which affect eligibility criteria.

However, it is estimated that it would cost in the region of €80m to reverse all of the adjustments that have been made to the student grant scheme since 2011.