‘Catherine’s Law’ will remove barriers facing students with disabilities
The Minister for Social Protection, Heather Humphreys TD, has today formally signed regulations that will remove barriers facing PhD students with disabilities.
The regulations will ensure that scholarship awards for PhD students are excluded from the means test for Disability Allowance (DA).
Minister Humphreys made the decision following direct engagement with DCU PhD student Catherine Gallagher.
Speaking after signing the regulations, Minister Humphreys said:
Catherine’s case demonstrated to me that there was a clear unfairness in the system, which I have now removed through the signing of these regulations.
From now on, scholarship awards for PhD students will no longer be assessed as income in the Disability Allowance means test. This measure will be effective from 1st September 2020.
This will mean that students like Catherine can continue with their scholarships and still retain their Disability Allowance payment.
I think it is only appropriate in light of Catherine’s hard work in highlighting this issue, that this legislation is known as ‘Catherine’s Law’.
Minister Humphreys continued:
This is the right thing to do. Government wants to encourage and help people with disabilities to further their education and remove any barriers in their way.
Along with Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Simon Harris, I intend to meet with key stakeholders such as the Disability Federation of Ireland, AHEAD Ireland and the Union of Students of Ireland (USI) to discuss this further in the coming weeks.
Finally I want to thank Catherine for bringing this to my attention, I’m glad that we have been able to find a solution quickly and I wish her every success in her studies at DCU.