Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Deputy's freedom of information request was such that he did not necessarily get the entire picture. The implementation group comprises officials from the Department, the chief executive officer of the CDVEC and senior SUSI personnel, and I get regular reports after they meet. I would never attempt to chair that meeting or project-manage that group myself.

However, 13 group meetings took place between 16 November 2011 and 24 September 2012. In addition 19 meetings took place on a weekly basis between 15 October 2012 and 3 March 2013. Meetings were held on a monthly basis prior to the October 2012 process. These project-group meetings are continuing to be held on a weekly basis. SUSI was a national agency processing in an unsatisfactory way, as I have said, and we will learn from that. In terms of the impact on families across the country, comparing like with like - in other words where we were in terms of the processing of the 66 various bodies that processed heretofore and SUSI - SUSI was approximately a week ahead in the relative comparisons. The main difference was that we now had one centralised figure, whereas previously we had 66 figures. There were difficulties for families in the past, which was one of the reasons SUSI was established. The Deputy's fellow county-man, the president of the USI, will tell him that from his knowledge the previous situation was unsatisfactory. Owing to the distress being caused for some families, which I openly admit, we made an additional €3 million available through the HEA for the welfare officers in all the third level offices to address the kinds of hardship problems the Deputy mentioned.

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