Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael)
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415. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if consideration will be given by his Department to excluding the pandemic unemployment payments when calculating family income for the purposes of the SUSI grant; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31468/22]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The decision on eligibility for a student grant is a matter for the centralised student grant awarding authority SUSI (Student Universal Support Ireland) to determine. As in any statutory scheme, a core principle of the scheme is that there is consistency of approach and an equitable treatment for applicants as part of the means assessment process. All applications are assessed nationally with reference to the terms and conditions of the relevant student grant scheme and these are applied impartially to all applicants.

For student grant purposes the Covid-19 pandemic unemployment 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.

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 of the relevant Student Grant Scheme. This could include a student or a party to their application no longer being in receipt of a pandemic unemployment payment.