As review begins, 7,000 students still await grants

A review of the failings of the Student Universal Support Ireland (Susi) grant system will focus on problems around documentation, processing and payments, with around 7,000 eligible students still waiting for their fees and grants to be paid.

City of Dublin Vocational Education Committee will consider tenders next Friday for an independent review of the system’s first year. Susi is part of CDVEC, which was picked by the Department of Education to take over the grants schemes still partially run by 66 councils and VECs.

With delays, errors and poor communication frustrating thousands of students, the review will report back on what caused the delays and recommend how to avoid them this year. The backlog reached crisis point before Christmas.