James Bannon (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I agree with Deputy Clare Daly that an apology must be issued to the students because the treatment of students, and their parents, has been appalling. I attended a students' union meeting last night in Athlone at which a great deal of anger was vented.

The SUSI system is a bureaucratic nightmare and is at the heart of the delay. Why were the experienced personnel in the local authorities and VECs not called in to deal with this crisis? They had been administering applications for a number of years and could have offered assistance in this area.

The only solution is to set up a one-stop shop in every third level college to deal with the crisis. Students are finding it impossible to make ends meet and are in arrears with their rent and book fees. A considerable number of students are dropping out of college because of the delay. In a progressive or civilised society, we cannot continue to allow this to happen. It is shameful and wrong. The body set up to deal with the grants was not ready to deal with the avalanche of applications.

A certain student told me her application had been sanctioned for payment on 14 October, yet no money has gone into her account. I checked this with her this morning. It is not good enough. Another student who applied in August was told everything was okay when she rang up. She rang again in September but the officials wanted further information stipulating whether her father had a private pension. The girl said he had not got one. She was told she had to put this in writing and revert to SUSI. She rang several times since then, without any success. Why should this be happening to students? They would love to get on with their studies rather than deal with their grant applications.