Tom Fleming (Kerry South, Independent)
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To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the steps that he has taken to address the delays in the processing of student grant applications; the number of student grant applications that has been received by Student Universal Support Ireland; the number that have been processed, awarded, refused or are awaiting decision to date; the number of applications that were received from County Kerry and the number of these that have been processed, awarded, refused, awaiting decision to date; if he will reassure all applicants and their families that all fully completed applications will be processed by Christmas; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [57126/12]

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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I understand from Student Universal Support Ireland (SUSI) that, as at the close of business on the 17th December, it has received 67,029 student grant applications for this year. Processing of 37,740 applications are now complete - 24,064 have been awarded, or awarded pending submission of final course details and 13,676 applications have been refused or cancelled. SUSI has 4,105 applications on hand which are currently being processed. Only 133 new applications have yet to commence processing. 6,910 applications that have been assessed are currently under query. SUSI is awaiting submission of documentation by the student on the remaining applications.

In total SUSI, has received some 2,479 applications from County Kerry. Of these 1,348 are at completion stage with 925 applications awarded, or awarded pending submission of final course details by the student and 423 applications have been refused or cancelled. 56 applications are currently at appeal with SUSI. 104 applications are with SUSI awaiting review. 962 applications are awaiting documentation from the student. In a small number of cases the documentation may have been submitted by the student and it is currently being checked by SUSI. 9 applications are awaiting provisional assessment - these are applications received after the closing date. This data has been supplied to my Department by SUSI.

SUSI is staffed to the level that has been requested and the resources have been put in place to enable them to process applications to completion, subject to all the necessary documentation having been submitted in order to make a decision in each case. The number of applications being processed has been increasing in recent weeks and every effort is being made to ensure that students get decisions on their grant applications as soon as possible.