Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats)
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529. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the number and value of overpayments made and recouped by SUSI in each of the years 2018 to 2020, in tabular form; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [44190/21]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The complex nature of the student grant scheme means that there is a risk that some students receive grant payments for which they are not eligible, including for reasons beyond the direct control of SUSI.

To mitigate the risk of overpayments, SUSI implements procedural and system-based controls within its application assessment and grant payment operations. A highly developed quality assurance programme is implemented within the assessment process and a focussed programme of independent post-assessment reviews are also performed across targeted risk areas.

The critical objective for SUSI is to identify and rectify errors on a timely basis before a grant is awarded and thus before any overpayment can arise. Issues identified from quality and post-assessment reviews are fed back into the assessment process through feedback and training on a current basis.

SUSI has a formal overpayments policy and implements repayment approaches that are sensitive to students’ means and circumstances.

SUSI is obliged to attempt to recoup any grants issued to applicants who are not eligible for funding, as per section 24 of the SUSI Support Act 2011: