Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy O'Brien for raising this important matter. As he stated, a new, fully centralised online student grant application system was launched in June. This system is being operated by a central grant awarding authority, Student Universal Support Ireland, SUSI, which has been established as a unit of the City of Dublin VEC. Up to last year, students applied to 66 different local authorities and VECs for grant assistance and the Deputy will be aware of the difficulties these bodies had in dealing with the huge increases in the numbers applying for student grants in recent years. The new facility automates and replaces the previous manual application arrangements with a centralised, easy-to-use online system of application for all new grant applicants nationwide from the 2012-13 academic year. It has been designed in such a way as to interactively guide students through the application process. Renewal applications for students already in receipt of a grant for their current courses will continue to be dealt with by the existing 66 grant-awarding authorities.

Under the old system the majority of third level students were paid by cheque, a costly and inefficient method of making payments. Under SUSI, students will be paid on a monthly basis directly into their bank accounts. This will lead to all SUSI grant applicants in an institution receiving their payments in the same way by means of electronic funds transfer. The main aim of the project is to substantially improve the grant application experience for over 66,000 new applicants each year. A tailored list of the documentation required to support these grant applications has issued to all students concerned. A significant change to the process for this year is that only photocopies, rather than originals, of the supporting documentation are required.

The Deputy will appreciate that the completion of the award process and subsequent payment of grants depends on students' returning the required documentation to SUSI. Some 19,000 students have yet to return this documentation to enable their applications to be processed to completion. A further 20,000 have returned incorrect or incomplete documentation. I understand that SUSI is actively following up with all of these applicants - by post, e-mail and text message - to ensure that the correct supporting documentation is returned as quickly as possible in order that their applications can proceed to the final decision stage.

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