Mr. Seán Ó Foghlú:

Certainly. To commence, clearly, this has been a difficult issue for the Minister and the Department. Indeed, the Minister apologised to Dáil Éireann in that regard and we would obviously reiterate that apology in terms of the impact on students in the first term of the last academic year.

I would make the point, however, that the system has processed more applications by early this year than the 66 centres did last year. In effect, the system caught up towards the end of the first term and we are actually ahead now in terms of processing than we were at the same stage last year. That is an important message to give. However, that is not to say there are not real challenges faced in completing the applications. There are challenges and we are working with the students and the institutions to complete that.

In relation to appeals, the current position, as at 20 February 2013, is 5,275 appeals have been made, 3,264 have had their initial decision overturned and 1,861 have had their initial decision upheld. Some 150 have yet to be processed and there are 806 reassessments.