Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Because of the replies to two parliamentary questions. While there might be an internal review or internal appeal process, an appeals board was established on 8 September 2011. It is chaired by Ms Maureen Waldron and is comprised of Mr. Pádraic McNamara, Dr. Marie Clarke, Ms Rebecca Murphy, Ms Eithne Frost, Dr. Brenna Clarke and Professor Kevin Ryan. This is the appeals board established to deal with appeals from all third level grant awarding authorities, with Student Universal Support Ireland, SUSI, being the main one. Obviously, it deals with appeals in respect of applications to SUSI. While I wish to go through the appeals process, this information was given to me in response to a parliamentary question two days ago, that is, on 26 February 2013.

Much more importantly, on 7 February 2013, having asked the Minister for Education and Skills to provide the number of appeals to the student grant appeal board for the academic year, I received a reply stating the total number of appeals received and considered by 7 February was 89. The numbers of decisions upheld and overturned were 54 and ten, respectively, while 23 had been referred back to the grant awarding authority and two had been referred back to the student for further information. These figures pertain to the number of appeals that had been considered and 157 had been received in total. It appears to me as though there is an internal system within SUSI which has dealt with 5,275 appeals to which the Secretary General referred a minute ago. However, up to 7 February, the appeals board to which the Secretary General referred had received 157 applications, of which only 127 related to SUSI. The others pertained to the other VECs and local authorities across Ireland, which still are processing third level grants for people who are in second, third or subsequent years and still are being dealt with. The Secretary General is confusing the appeals board with some internal appeal system within SUSI.