2026-01-29

89. Deputy Naoise Ó Cearúil asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science the measures being considered for 2026 to support students with accommodation and living costs, including any planned adjustments to SUSI thresholds; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [6882/26]

What measures are being considered this year, in 2026, to support students with accommodation and living costs, including any planned adjustments to SUSI thresholds, particularly in our constituency of Kildare North and the Maynooth area but also as students from across our constituency are travelling into Dublin. Not everybody goes to Maynooth, as I did. A lot of people go into Dublin. What plans, if any, are there for 2026?

I am very familiar with the challenges of commuting from Kildare to various colleges. I have two daughters, one attending Maynooth and one attending UCD, both of whom recently graduated, and I have seen the commute, the grind and so on. The Deputy and I have worked together on improving public transport on many of those services. When I came to review the grants this year, I was mindful of non-adjacent students, that is, students who live 30 km or more away from college. The Deputy will appreciate, representing as we both do a commuter-belt constituency, that non-adjacent previously meant 45 km and it is now 30 km. Just because we are close to a college, be it UCD or any college in the city centre, does not mean it is easy to get there, put simply. That is because of congestion, commuting and so on. I was very mindful of that, so the distance is down to 30 km. As to what supports are available for students facing accommodation pressures, commuting costs and so forth, I have increased all the non-adjacent grants this year - the first five levels, from the base grant right through - some by €350 and some by up to €420. Every single non-adjacent grant for students living 30 km or more away from their college has increased this year. I have also increased the postgraduate contribution fee. That means that postgraduate students have €500 less to pay this year. I have increased the subvention to the student contribution fee more broadly, in a universal fashion, which means there is a €500 permanent cut to student fees across the board. In particular, in terms of targeted measures, that additional money allocated to people on non-adjacent grants is real money into their hands, additional money that I expect will support them significantly in making the costs add up. I also increased the student assistance fund. That is a discretionary fund available through college hardship officers. I am increasing thresholds as well. The threshold to avail of the various grants has increased now to €120,000, which means Members of this House, for example, can benefit from a SUSI grant, which would not have been the case historically.

I acknowledge the efforts and measures the Minister has taken in increasing the non-adjacent grants, the student assistance fund, etc. I spent a year in student union politics just after university in Maynooth students' union. An issue then, which continues to be an issue, is that there are those who sit right above the threshold for grants, for whatever reason. It is similar in a way to when somebody is applying for social housing and there is an income limit of €40,000. In circumstances where there is a €40,000 income limit, as in that instance, or a €50,000 limit, in terms of the SUSI grant, there is sometimes a reason that the threshold should not apply to someone earning €51,000. In that circumstance, is there any way view of assessing difficulty or hardship or reasoning when assessing that hard line of a threshold?

In any social democracy, where do we draw the line and where should income levels and thresholds be? We are at a situation now where the threshold to avail of the minimum form of a grant is €120,000 per household, which means 80% of households in Ireland are eligible for at least some form of SUSI grant intervention. To the Deputy's broader point about how we draw the line, and there are a number of lines as you go through the graduated system, I mentioned to Deputy Charles Ward earlier that there is a disregard for mica scheme payments. There are also disregards for disability payments and bursaries, for example, the 1916 scheme. I think there are several dozen of those because I signed a statutory instrument last year to give effect to them. The many disregards should go some way towards making it easier to hit the thresholds. One thing I intend to explore in the upcoming budget is whether, in the case of larger families with a number of children in the household attending college at one time, there is a measure we could take to ease the burden on them and whether that is a factor or criterion we could take into account. I am pursuing that at the moment to investigate for this year's budget.

I welcome that. It is really positive. Deputy Jen Cummins mentioned earlier children who are estranged from their parents, etc., and having to rely on their parents then when they are looking for student grants or if they are not getting student grants, even though they are estranged. The Minister's response to that made complete sense. It could increase the number of people claiming they are estranged when they might not be. The Minister and spoke outside the House about the other issue I raise. He stated that about 80% of the population are eligible for some sort of SUSI grant. I do not know if this is being planned but it would be great to see the Department promote that message in secondary schools. It could also work with the CAO to get that news out to students. A lot of people who are eligible for it do not claim it, like me. As we spoke about before, I did not claim it in first year, but I did in second year when I realised I was eligible for it.

I wholeheartedly agree with the Deputy. Many of the thresholds are now so high and some of the benefits are so broadly available that maybe people have not realised they are eligible for them. I did launch a communications campaign in the national media last summer as a result of that to make people aware. Deputies may have seen it running across national radio and TV. That did actually drive an increase in applicants, which I was glad to see because we devise these schemes so people can avail of them. That is the whole point of having them. I agree with that and we will continue to do more of that as well. I will mention too, because I think it is relevant in terms of the wider supports, that the student assistance fund, which the Deputy might be aware of from his students union time, is a broad-based fund at the discretion of each individual access officer or welfare officer in the colleges. It is a pool of money worth €19.3 million. That is there and I increased it again coming into the new year. That is for things like books, the cost of materials, rent subvention if necessary, food, travel and medical costs. There is a relatively wide list and it is not prescriptive. Significant trust is rightly given to the access officers or welfare officers in each college to make a call when they have a student coming to them for assistance. They can judge and I think they get that call right.

I thank the Minister.

That broad-based fund is available and it is an additional student support on top of the other schemes there.