15,000 student grant applicants cancel their claims
Student Universal Support Ireland (Susi) has paid out grants and fees to just over 36,500 of around 65,400 who applied since last summer for help from the €360m student support budget. But while 2,500 had yet to supply remaining documents or confirm they are proceeding, it said 14,473 have cancelled.
“Large numbers of them were cancelled since we intensified our campaign after Christmas to contact people with outstanding applications or who had not responded to previous requests,” a Susi spokesman said.
He said that, apart from one case, Susi is unaware of any of the 2,449 people whose applications were under query last week, claiming that documents being sought had already been supplied.
“In most cases, we are looking for confirmation of their situation in 2012 from various government bodies or a particular statement they hadn’t provided, and in a lot of cases it’s to do with proving they are living independently [from their families],” he said.
The question of how some students were asked to submit documents for a second or subsequent time is one of the key issues being examined by an ongoing review of Susi.
Susi was set up by City of Dublin VEC to take over the running of student grants from 66 other VECs and councils over the next three years.
A backlog of applications, delays and errors in decisions, and claims of mishandling of supporting documents sent in by applicants caused outcry last autumn.
The independent review by Accenture Ireland is expected to be published by CDVEC by the end of the month, after it is sent to Education Minister Ruairi Quinn.
Susi has promised that some changes already decided on should make the process more straightforward for first-time applicants and this year’s recipients renewing their grants.
Almost 11,500 of this year’s applications to Susi have been refused, but 200 successful internal appeals to Susi are being reassessed to determine the support to which the students are entitled.
More than 60% of almost 5,300 appeals concluded up to the end of February were decided in favour of students.
