Student grants applications to be processed online

STUDENT GRANT applications will be processed online and paid electronically through a single grant body from September 2012.

This would address the problem of some 60 per cent of applications being returned as incomplete or inaccurate, the Department of Education said.

The new system would give students up-to-date information on the status of their grant application and would also give them provisional assessment before they submit documentary evidence, the department said.

As announced in April last the existing City of Dublin VEC will operate as the grant-awarding authority to replace the existing 66 councils and VECs.

The department declined to specify the amount of savings that would be generated except to say that they would be “substantial”.

Students would no longer be paid by cheque under the new system, and the frequency (monthly or each semester) “will be addressed in the course of the formulation of the service level agreement”, the department said.

The move was welcomed by Union of Students in Ireland president Gary Redmond.