Grant Payments
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-29
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James Lawless (FF), Kildare North

I understand the issue the Deputy raises about mature students and returning emigrants. Deputy Roche has tabled a question on that matter to which I will respond to in more detail later.
In terms of documentation, that is a difficult issue. I am sure the Deputy is not suggesting that we should give grants out without any application process or robust checks. It is taxpayer's money that we are talking about. The last question I answered was about the MySUSI project which went over budget and I am sure we would all agree that we need to get value for money and be prudent and robust when it comes to taxpayer's money. Obviously, certain documentation is required. If students are not providing it, that is a Catch-22 situation. They cannot really get their grant until they provide the documentation and I would not expect the system to work any other way, frankly. What we can do is provide guidance. We have online wizards and I intend to continue to improve and streamline that process and provide information earlier. As I mentioned, we ran advertisement campaigns last year in the various media to make sure students knew what they had to do and knew how to get the grant.
The Deputy mentioned that some students miss out because of income. The income levels are now at €120,000. As a result, the children of Members of this House can now avail of SUSI grants. That was not the case historically. We have gone right into the squeezed middle and beyond to a situation where 80% of households are now eligible for some kind of SUSI grant. That is historic.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-29/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:34+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-01-29