Ring joins FG rebellion on college grant changes

The growing Fine Gael rebellion against moves to include farm assets in means tests for student grants has been joined by Mayo TD Michael Ring.

The minister of state for tourism and sport said such a change would discriminate against farmers.

The row threatens to open up another rift in the Coalition after Education Minister Ruairi Quinn announced he is reviewing the system which awards grants based on parents’ income.

Senior Labour figures claim farmers and those who are self-employed can “manipulate their income” so that their children are eligible for grants. The clash is set to provoke strong debate when the Cabinet next meets on Sept 4.

Mr Ring insisted the reform would hit farming families disproportionately.

“I think it would be very unfair if you had assets taken in. I mean it is only 6% of farming families who are actually getting the third- level grant, and I don’t think that you could take assets — it would have to be income and I think that is the fairest system,” he told RTÉ.

Labour chairman Colm Keaveney suggested that any new means-testing system should assess families over a longer time frame than one year to take revenue and income into account.

Andrew Doyle, chairman of the Oireachtas committee on agriculture, said there were “a lot of people with concerns” that the changes were a “simplistic way of achieving cost savings”.

IFA president John Bryan said farmers “would not tolerate any changes” which would result in children from low-income farm families being excluded from third-level grants.