Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein)
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1045. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills to revise the SUSI grant qualifying criteria to allow students, who are under 23 years-of-age and are financially independent from their parents and guardians to be eligible to receive the SUSI grant; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39674/25]

James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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The objective of the statutory based student grant scheme is to provide additional assistance where parental income is below a certain threshold or, in the case of independent mature students, where the level of income of the student and his or her spouse warrants additional assistance by way of a grant.

For student grants purposes, students are categorised according to their circumstances either as students dependent on parents or a legal guardian or as independent mature students.

A candidate's reckonable income for the purposes of the student grant means test is gross income from all sources and the gross income of his/her parents or guardians, where applicable, with certain specified Department of Social Protection Payments being exempt.

A student may be assessed as an independent mature student if they have attained the age of 23 on the 1st of January of the year of first entry to an approved course and is not ordinarily resident with their parent(s) or legal guardian(s) from the previous 1st October. The documentation required can be found here: .

A student under the age of 23 may be assessed without reference to parental income only in exceptional cases, for example orphans, students in foster care, cases where there is evidence of irreconcilable estrangement from parents or legal guardians etc. Applicants are requested to share documentary evidence with SUSI to confirm their situation. The type of documentary evidence required is dependent on the applicant’s individual circumstances and may vary widely from case to case. This approach is taken with a view to giving applicants the flexibility to provide documents that relate to their specific circumstances.

The Deputy will appreciate that the funding allocation for the Student Grant Scheme is determined in the context of the overall estimates and budgetary process undertaken by all Government Departments. All proposals made in relation to SUSI grant expenditure can only be considered in the context of the budgetary allocation, having regard to overall resource constraints and other competing demands in the further and higher education sector.