Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy O'Mahony for raising this issue. I am taking this Topical Issue on behalf of my colleague, the Minister, Deputy Quinn. As the Deputy said, the processing of student grants for new entrants has been centralised this year under one body - Student Universal Support Ireland, or SUSI, which was established as a unit of the City of Dublin VEC. This will replace the 66 grant-awarding bodies which were previously responsible for student grants. Local authorities and VECs are continuing to deal with renewal students until they complete their existing courses. Some 65,000 applications have been received by SUSI this year, of which approximately 35,000 are expected to succeed. SUSI is aiming to award all successful applicants before the end of December. The Deputy will recall that in the past, many students did not receive payments until much later in the academic year.

Some 65,000 applications were received this year. Approximately 5,000 late applications are awaiting initial assessment. Almost 10,000 applications have been refused, or have been cancelled by the applicants. In over 16,000 cases, no response has been received from the students to requests for supporting documentation. Text reminders have been sent to these applicants in a further effort to get the documentation submitted. Almost 20,000 sets of documents are awaiting validation. It should be noted that in 17,500 of these cases, incorrect or incomplete documentation has been submitted at least once. These documents are awaiting validation for at least the second time. The remaining applications have been assessed by SUSI. More than 4,000 have been awarded, more than 2,000 have been provisionally awarded pending submission of course acceptance forms, approximately 4,500 are being reviewed by SUSI and a further 4,000 have had additional information requested from the students involved.

It is inevitable that a late rush of applications will cause some delays in a student grant processing system. The Department is continuing to monitor the situation actively in close consultation with SUSI, which is working with the Union of Students in Ireland to encourage students to submit outstanding documentation. SUSI is constantly seeking to improve the information available online and from its helpdesk, e-mail and telephone services. SUSI has received 1,019 appeals to date. While SUSI aims to issue determinations as promptly as possible and within the specified 30-day timeframe, I am aware that a number of appeals on hand were received more than 30 days ago. The Department has been assured by SUSI that these cases are being given priority and will be dealt with in the next five days.

The main aim of putting in place a single agency was to improve substantially the grant application experience for new applicants each year. It was inevitable that there would be process challenges in its first year of operation, particularly when the new system was delivered in an extraordinarily short timeframe. In these circumstances, it is particularly important for the system to respond in a prompt and effective manner to any challenges that arise. I assure the Deputy that the Department is continuing to monitor progress closely and is actively engaged with SUSI to ensure every possible action is being taken to expedite decisions on all outstanding cases. The Minister, Deputy Quinn, contacted the CEO of City of Dublin VEC in relation to this matter this week. The CEO assured him that any delays arising in the operation of the new system are being addressed by SUSI as a matter of priority. The utmost importance is being placed on communicating with applicants to ensure all outstanding documentation is submitted so that decisions can issue to students and any appeals arising can be dealt.with expeditiously.

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