Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 20 November 2012
133. Deputy Peadar Tóibín asked the Minister for Education and Skills the percentage of existing students that have received their initial grant payments from the 66 vocational educational committees and local authorities for the 2012/2013 academic year. [51341/12]
View answerAs the Deputy may be aware, all new applications for the 2012/13 academic year are being processed and paid by SUSI, the new centralised grant awarding authority. Continuing students who are renewing their grant for attendance on an existing course with their existing awarding authority, which will be either a local authority or a VEC, will continue to have their applications processed and paid by the relevant grant awarding authority. Continuing students on a level 6 or level 7 course in the Institutes of Technology will continue to be paid their grant directly by their institution.
The 66 grant awarding authorities as at 2 November, 2012 paid student grants to some 20,672 renewal students. In addition some 4546 students were paid directly by their Institute. Accordingly some 76% of renewal students awarded a grant by the 66 grant awarding authorities have received their grant payments as at the 2 November, 2012. This data has been compiled from information provided to my Department by the 66 grant awarding authorities and the Institutes of Technology.
The migration of the new applications to SUSI has enabled the 66 grant awarding authorities to process renewal applications on a more efficient basis - these are generally more straightforward and require significantly less documentary evidence.
