Ms Jacinta Stewart:

Those are two separate issues in regard to that matter. In 2012-13, there were three particular overpayment issues. One was the back-to-education allowance, which is a social welfare allowance that students received up until 2010 as well as their maintenance grant. In fact, some students who were in college in 2013 would have continued to receive that allowance.

In 2012-13, students should only have been paid either a maintenance grant or the back-to-education allowance. When they applied for the grant in the early stages, they may not have been clear about whether they were going to get the back-to-education allowance or not. We identified that as an area of high risk, and after the event we went back to look at this because it was an area of high risk. It was very unclear in the documents coming in and out what the status of students was in relation to the back-to-education allowance. We made a number of errors in identifying that. The result is that there were a number of overpayments in this area. That cannot occur now because of the direct links with the Department of Social Protection. In the cases in question, we now know who is in receipt of the back-to-education allowance and who is not. The only possibility - I never want to say we might never have something - is that there might be a time lag between our process and that of the Department of Social Protection, but it would be very short by comparison with what happened in 2012-13.

We also had a group of postgraduate students who were asked whether they were independent. They were independent at that time but we should have made sure that they were independent at the time of their entry to college rather than at the time they were commencing their postgraduate studies.

The third group in respect of which there was a difficulty comprised non-Irish or non-EU nationals. There is a set of grant eligibility rules for six distinct categories for people coming into the country who have the right — for example, a humanitarian right — to remain. They may be refugees or may be married to an Irish citizen. They are entitled to a grant but there are other groups that are not entitled to a grant. In the first year, individuals in some of those groups were given the grant. We found it righted itself in the sense that a number of them became eligible during the year in that they became Irish citizens or their situation was regularised, although it was not at the time of the grant.

We have made a proposal to the Department. We obviously stop payments but we have made a proposal to the Department on overpayments in the cases in question. The issue was identified a year later. We then had to go in and look at every single student and everything that had happened with every student in question. We had to talk to the students and get information back from them. We have made a proposal in those particular cases that we would not recoup the payments that were made. In normal circumstances, we recoup payments. In the usual circumstances, we have managed to reduce that to a very small number of students for 2014-15, but we continually keep an eye on it. We have a system in place. If, for example, somebody is assessed and is very close to the limit, there is a red flag attached to him or her so that he or she may be reassessed in the following year.