Ms Jacinta Stewart:

Deputy Ryan asked about planning. We looked at a number of models of centralised systems. This is one of the developments that is taking place with regard to grants. In particular, we examined the Scottish awards system. We spoke to and consulted with bodies such as the Union of Students in Ireland, Institutes of Technology Ireland, the universities, the Revenue Commissioners and the Department of Social Protection.

As the committee will be aware, we have much experience over a long period of awarding grants in Dublin city. We had an online system in place in Dublin city for the past two years - a practice run, if you like. We also had a group working on that who were planning and putting a structure in place. We went into a great deal of detail. We produced training manuals. We produced detailed documentation on Abtran. We have a service level agreement with it which specifies what we expect to happen at various stages of the process. We had expectations of how the documentation would come in at various stages, what would happen at each stage and how it would be dealt with.