I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Troy, to the Chamber. He is a regular visitor here. I want to raise the need for the Minister for education to make a statement on the volume of documentation required for families to access SUSI grants; the time it takes, and how that time could be reduced, taking into account the additional paperwork self-employed people are asked to provide.

This is an issue that has been raised with me by a number of families in Galway city and throughout the county. As the Minister of State will appreciate, it is an important support for these families, particularly with the cost-of-living challenges in recent months and over the past year, of which we are all aware. I would like to read an extract from one email on this matter into the record sent to me by one parent. The lady stated:

I've gone through the process twice myself, as I have two students in university, and it has been extremely frustrating. As my husband is self-employed, it becomes even more complicated. SUSI repeatedly came back looking for additional documentation, and to be honest, it reaches a point where people simply give up, I have, twice.

I can verify that this has happened that lady on two occasions. Of course we must have safeguards in place, as the Minister of State will bs aware. We have to ensure the supports are being distributed properly and not open to abuse but, at the same time, it should not be so complicated and so time consuming that families who are entitled to the grant end up giving up on the process. There is an issue here that needs to be addressed. It must be looked at by the Minister, Deputy James Lawless, and within the Department of education. A more suitable middle ground must be found.

The experience I outlined has been repeated to me a number of times at this stage. Hard-working families across Galway city and county with limited time have to spend so much of it to access a grant to which they are fully entitled. It seems that there must be a better way. One constituent who was in touch with me on this raised the option of linking SUSI assessments directly with Revenue data, which would seem to be an option. I appreciate that there may be GDPR considerations to be worked out in that regard but it would seem feasible, at least in theory. I fully appreciate that there need to be safeguards but, equally, it should be possible to implement a system that is more time-friendly for families than the current structure, and makes the system more efficient.

I thank Senator Crowe for raising this important issue. It is a matter that has been brought to the attention of the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science on a number of occasions over the past few years, but Senator Crowe makes valid points in his contribution. The main financial support available to students is the student grant scheme. The scheme is administered by Student Universal Support Ireland, SUSI, on behalf of the Department. In order to qualify for a grant, all applicants must fulfil eligibility criteria which include income, residency, nationality and progression. This process will often involve documentation being submitted in support of an application. Under Article 36 of the grant scheme, an applicant must submit the required information upon request from SUSI. However, it is worth noting that SUSI has a number of significant data-sharing agreements with public bodies in place already that reduce the documentation burden on applicants. Examples of these include information feeds from the Department of Social Protection, the Revenue Commissioners and the CAO. Through these feeds, SUSI can receive the relevant information on income or social welfare payments directly from source. This reduces the need for an applicant to submit documentation with their application and improves efficiency for SUSI. It is acknowledged that for self-employed households there may be more documentation required during the application process. That is why SUSI, in collaboration with the Department, is constantly looking at ways to make the process more efficient for the applicant, be it through additional data-sharing agreements or examining internal processes.

The SUSI support team also works closely with all applicants to support them. In addition to the current supports in place to help applicants, City of Dublin Education and Training Board is currently undertaking a significant ICT and business transformation project relating to the modernisation of the student grant application scheme. This aligns with Government policy on providing digital services to our citizens. SUSI is continuously improving in processing applications. It has consistently met and exceeded the key performance indicators within the management framework agreement with the Department of further and higher education. For example, in the academic year 2025-26, the mean period of time for the initial assessment of an application was just over two weeks, and just over one week for the assessment of returned documentation. It is important to also outline the significant enhancements to the student grant scheme the Department has made in recent years. For example, all income thresholds increased by 15% this academic year, bringing the overall threshold up to €115,000. For the upcoming academic year, the grant threshold has been widened further to €120,000 and the non-adjacent maintenance rates have been increased by between €200 and €430. In addition to strengthening the student grant scheme, the student contribution fee has been permanently reduced by €500. This means that eligible undergraduate students from households earning up to €120,000 will pay no more than €2,000 towards the student contribution charge from 2026-27.

I thank the Minister of State for his detailed response. As I noted, we all understand that there must be precautions in place to ensure the system is not open to abuse. At the same time, there is huge frustration among the self-employed in particular. Families have told me how about difficult it is to access the support they are currently fully entitled to. I welcome the Minister of State's announcement that it will be updated, and an online digital system is going to be put in place. To that extent, some families have previously given up because it seemed to be never ending. With some closer co-operation between Departments, this should be something we can make quick progress on. If we could do that, it would make an immediate and significant difference to hundreds of families across the country, particularly in Galway city and Galway West. I would be grateful if the Minister of State would raise this with the Minister, Deputy Lawless, and request that his Department examine the issue in the short term if possible. I appreciate that applications for the 2027 academic year are already open so it may not be possible to make progress for this year. However, in my view it should be something we can fully resolve when applications open for 2028. I welcome the Minister of State's response.

SUSI processes more than 100,000 grants annually. Some 110,000 students applied for support in this academic year with the Government investing €350 million to support students. A significant number of people are availing of Government support. I think we all agree that the Minister, Deputy Lawless, is engaged with the student unions, the bodies, students and their families, and is continuously looking at ways to challenge the costs of college. He is conscious of that, and we will see positive changes in the upcoming academic year. I will bring the specific points to the Minister because I know he is determined to improve the efficiency and experience for students applying for the SUSI grant. We have already seen data sharing between Revenue and social protection. It is about looking at how we can share more data to alleviate the pressures on self-employed people so they can feel the benefits of data sharing equally to the PAYE worker. I will bring back the message raised forcibly today to the Minister.