I raise the matter of students who were in receipt of the pandemic unemployment payment, PUP, last year. There are now difficulties when they apply for SUSI grants. Some have had reductions in their grants, some have had their qualifying income completely disqualified and some have had to defer their courses. This is putting a lot of stress on students for September. What is the Government doing to mitigate the plight of students who have been discriminated against because they were in receipt of PUP last year? They accepted the PUP, and that is fair enough, but now they will be punished when they need SUSI grants in September.

The PUP, in some respects, reflected what people were earning. It represented an unprecedented support of students because it would have been the first time they received welfare payments from the Department of Social Protection. The PUP was an exceptional payment in the context of the pandemic. It still represents a very unprecedented support of students by the Government over a prolonged period. If the Deputy has cases where the PUP may have put people over the threshold, he might forward them to us so we can get an idea of the extent of the issue.

Generally speaking, the PUP rate was reflective, although not totally, of what a person was earning. A person might even have been earning a bit more, which would have caused him or her to be above the threshold, if what the Deputy is saying is the case. We can follow through on individual cases and assess the extent of the problem.