Ray Butler (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the delegates for their presentation. I will not reiterate what was said. My constituency office finds it very hard to get through to SUSI. Is there a special number that Members can ring? They cannot get through at present.

My eldest child started college in Maynooth this year. Many students who have no grants yet cannot enter the library and use many of the amenities on the campus. One must have a card but if one does not have a grant, one cannot obtain one. Next year, no cash whatsoever will be exchanged on the campus and only cards will be used. Therefore, we must get our house in order. This is very serious. We must examine the longer-term implications.

Consider the case of the son of a lady who came to my constituency office yesterday. Somebody rang the lady last Friday to state somebody down the country has the same PPS number as her son, thus delaying the processing of his grant application. We checked this and discovered it was totally untrue. Are excuses being made to stem the tide? When we discovered there was no duplicated PPS number and that the young man was genuine, we could not get through to SUSI. Are major excuses being made to try to curtail the backlog?