Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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235. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if she is aware of a problem in the Student Universal Support Ireland application process whereby the input of a number of days, along with weeks, in the sections dealing with income is not permissible, to allow for accurate figures to be provided in the totals section; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [8817/16]

Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour)
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Assessment of means under my Department 's student grant scheme is based on gross income from all sources of the applicant and his/her parent(s)/legal guardian, where applicable, with certain social welfare and health service executive payments being exempt.

I understand from SUSI, that under the current application process, all income apart from Department of Social Protection (DSP) income, is required to be input as an annual amount. DSP income is required to be input as a weekly amount - the student is required to input the number of weeks and the amount per week received and the system calculates an annual figure from this information. There is no facility for entering the number of days a DSP payment has been received. This annual figure is an indicative figure and in all cases SUSI verify the actual amount received in the relevant period through its data sharing facility with the DSP.

SUSI are currently working towards an application process where the applicant will not have to provide figures relating to income at time of application. In the near future it is envisaged that the student would simply indicate that there is income from a particular source and SUSI would be able to verify the actual amount received in the relevant period through data sharing facilities with the relevant body that hold the information on the payment.