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

The trauma-informed view is extremely important. Having chaired the justice committee in the previous term, we saw many examples of trauma and how it led into addiction and triggered a certain path in life. I fully support a trauma-informed approach. It is one of the reasons I committed additional funding to the mental health budget in higher education institutions this year.
On mature students, to recap the rules, a student can be assessed as independent if they have reached the age of 23 on 1 January of the year they start and have not been ordinarily resident with their parents from the previous October. As such, if a student is outside the home and is aged 23 years or over, they can apply. For the avoidance of doubt, there is an estrangement option within the SUSI system. Applicants can declare on their application form that they are irreconcilably estranged and a specialist team works on those applications. Sometimes student unions and others will say this or that document was not accepted. I am told there is no prescriptive set of documents. It is case by case; it is discretionary. It may be a court order, although it does not have to be, a letter or a form.

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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