Grant Terms and Conditions

1. General: the SEC grant is intended to support necessitous members of Protestant communities in meeting the costs associated with attending fee-charging Protestant day and boarding secondary schools. A condition of receiving the grant is that applicants’ net reckonable incomes remain below the maximum allowable threshold of the SEC means test and that applicants’ children continue to be members of the Protestant community.
2. Payment of Grants:
   a) Termly Payments:
   i) The SEC grant is paid to schools on behalf of applicants in three termly instalments. The first instalment is normally paid in September and covers the first term from August/September until December, the second instalment is normally paid in January and covers the second term from January to the schools’ Easter break, and the third instalment is normally paid in April and covers the third term from after the Easter break until the commencement of the summer holidays.
   ii) The payment of each moiety of the grant is contingent upon continued funding being available from the Protestant Block Grant. If the SEC has insufficient funds available to pay the allocated grant, it shall not be obliged to fulfil any or all of the allocated grant.
   b) Verification of Child’s School Status: prior to the payment being made each term the child’s current status within the school will be confirmed with the school and amendments to the grant may be made.
   c) Continuation in School for duration of term: if a child leaves a school prior to the conclusion of the mid-term break in any term, no grant will be payable for that term.
   d) Transfer to another SEC recognised school: if a child transfers to another SEC recognised school, subject to condition 3 and 4 below, the grant will be payable to the school to which the child has transferred.
3. Continuation of Eligibility Criteria:The payment of grants in each term is subject to the child continuing to meet the eligibility criteria for the grant namely:
   a) The applicant(s) should be resident in Ireland
   b) Be a member of an SEC recognised Protestant denomination
4. Obligation of Applicants to advise SEC of change of status:in accepting a grant, applicants undertake to advise the SEC of all changes in status, including the withdrawal of a child from a school or the decision not to utilise a grant at as an early stage as possible. If a grant is paid due to the failure of an applicant to notify the SEC of a change in a child’s status, it will be refunded to the SEC by the school or the applicant.
5. Change of Status by SEC: the SEC reserves the right to amend the grant amount or child’s status at any stage.
6. Restriction on use of SEC grant: the SEC grant may be used exclusively to cover boarding fees or tuition fees or both, subject to the grant not exceeding the maximum amount of fees chargeable. Grants paid that exceed the maximum fees charged may be recovered by the SEC and applicants may be liable to return any overpayment.
7. Over or underpayments: where termly grant payments are paid in error, the SEC will recover the monies by adjusting subsequent termly payments. Where grants are paid in error in the third term, an adjustment may be applied in the next term, by recovering the funds directly from applicants, or by other means arranged with the school. Underpayments will be corrected by increasing subsequent termly payments.
8. Revision of Grants: the SEC reserves the right to review an applicant’s case at any time and if material errors in the calculation of the means test are discovered or information not previously disclosed is included, the SEC reserves the right to revise grant amounts. Applications will be reviewed whenever a child transfers school.
9. Non-disclosure: any non-disclosure of information that would alter an applicants’ eligibility for a grant or alter the value of the grant allocated may lead to the disqualification of the applicant from making future applications to the SEC and lead to the initiation of proceedings to recover from the applicant any grant paid.