Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 23 October 2012
249. Deputy Charlie McConalogue asked the Minister for Education and Skills if he will confirm that 19,000 students have yet to return the required documentation to Student Universal Support Ireland in order to complete their application; if some 20,000 students have returned incorrect or incomplete information; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [46121/12]
View answer250. Deputy Charlie McConalogue asked the Minister for Education and Skills the reason 20,000 students have returned incorrect or incomplete information in relation to the grant application to Student Universal Support Ireland; his views on whether the problem lies with the application form or the new system put in place; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [46122/12]
View answerI propose to take Questions Nos. 249 and 250 together.
At the time of response the figures quoted by Deputy Cannon were correct. There are still 16,351 cases where no documentation has been furnished by the applicants in response to SUSI's request. In addition, in a very significant number of cases an incomplete set of documentation was received and SUSI has had to make further requests to these students to submit the outstanding information. 19,629 document packs are currently in the process of being validated by SUSI – some 89% of these are cases where the initial pack submitted by the applicant was incomplete.
The submission of supporting documentation by students together with submitting a fully complete and legible application form has tradionally given rise to difficulties in relation to the timely processing of applications for student grants. The online application process addresses the issue of incomplete and difficult to read applications.
In order to ensure a decision on a student's application, it is critical that the required supporting documentation is provided. A number of measures were put in place by SUSI to try to address the perennial issue of incomplete documentation. Every student is issued with a personalised checklist of the documentation required to support their student grant application. The student also receives a guide which outlines where the requested documents may be sourced. The purpose of this process is to offer the student as much assistance as possible in returning the requested information. Copies of all requested documentation is now acceptable. In the past only original documentation was accepted. A pre-addressed envelope is included with the pack to facilitate the return of these documents. In spite of these measures there continues to be a significant number of applications where full documentation has not been submitted.
Where the applicant has not yet returned the outstanding documentation, SUSI is continuing to contact the applicants by email and text message to enable the applications to proceed to final decision stage. The matter of outstanding documentation is being kept under continuous review to ensure that every effort is being made to progress applications to final decisions as soon as possible.
