Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail)
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496. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she has considered amalgamating the Central Applications Office and the Student Universal Support Ireland systems, and introducing the proposals put forward by the St. Vincent de Paul Society (details supplied) for aligning the systems to ensure that students know their funding status before the take up their Central Applications Office offer. [41557/15]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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The Department engages with SUSI on an on-going basis on the implementation of changes and improvements to SUSI's service delivery model.

Reconfiguring the application process alongside the CAO applications process is not a straightforward proposition. For example one of the key eligibility criteria for receiving grant funding is the assessment of reckonable income. Income details supplied by Revenue and/or Department of Social Protection for the relevant period for assessment purposes would not be available when the CAO application process opens in November. Extending the application processing window would not necessarily increase processing efficiency and may indeed add some layers to the process.

However, SUSI has opened earlier each year since it first came into operation in June 2012. It opened on 23 April this year for the 2015/16 academic year. This, combined with many other ongoing improvements made by SUSI, resulted in almost 27,000 students being paid in September this year, the first time that payments have been made before October. SUSI will continue to work to ensure that students receive decisions on their student grant applications as early as possible to assist them in making more informed decisions when they receive their CAO offers. A Service Level Agreement between SUSI and the CAO currently provides for the direct transfer of data from the CAO to SUSI in relation to final course acceptance details for applicants who opt to have their data transferred.