Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this important matter. Up to 2011, students applied to their local authority or VEC for their grants. Some 66 grant awarding authorities were involved, all using a variety of application, assessment and payment processes. SUSI replaces all of these with a centralised and online system of application. While there were problems in the first year of the new system, the policy decision was correct, that the establishment of a single grant awarding body would serve our students better in the long run.

City of Dublin VEC commissioned an external review of SUSI which was carried out by Accenture and published last Friday. I welcome this review and fully support its recommendations, implementation of which has commenced. Applications opened this week for the coming academic year and I am pleased to say extra resources have been sanctioned to ensure SUSI will have additional staff to meet the needs of new applicants. I am informed by SUSI that, in preparation for the 2013-14 academic year, the online application and assessment processes are being further developed to enhance their effectiveness and efficiency and to respond to the experiences from year one.

For applicants going to or returning to college for the 2013-14 academic year, a number of new initiatives will make their application to SUSI more efficient this year. The initiatives include direct information sharing between SUSI and Government bodies and agencies, including the Revenue Commissioners, the Department of Social Protection, the General Register Office and the Central Applications Office. These links will reduce significantly the number of documents required.

In addition to these developments, core staff are now on site. These trained and experienced staff are cross-functional and a number of them are now fully proficient in specialist areas such as analysis of income from self-employment, nationality issues and appeals. There is a revised document management process in place and also a new tracking system is being developed which will allow students to follow the progress of their applications online. This will reduce the requirement for students to contact the SUSI helpdesk for updates on the status of their applications.

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