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Regardless of whether you will be attending college close to home or away from home, you should apply to the local authority or VEC in your home area.

The residency requirement for the student grant is as follows:

The applicant shall have been ordinarily resident in the State for at least three out of the last five years immediately preceding the date on which a year of study on an approved course in an approved institution commences.

For example, if the next year of study on your chosen course commences on 20 September 2010, by the time this date comes around you will need to have been ordinarily resident in the State for at least three years in the period since 20 September 2005.

The only other circumstance in which you can be eligible on residency grounds without meeting the above requirement is as follows:

a) you were temporarily resident outside of the Irish State by reason of pursuing a course of study or postgraduate research, and

b) the course of study or postgraduate research took place in an approved institution outside of the Irish State but within an EU Member State, and

c) you were resident in the Irish State for at least three out of the five years immediately preceding the date on which you commenced the course of study or postgraduate research.

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