Mr. Philip Connolly:

Yes.

Deputy Catherine Martin inquired about adjacency and distance. This matter has come up a lot. We work from the guidelines issued by the Minister every year on how we calculate the distance and what is involved. Deputy Jan O'Sullivan raised this issue as well. The guidelines refer to the shortest most direct route. According to those guidelines, we must be transparent with the applicant. That is why Google Maps was mentioned.

Those guidelines also must be transparent to the applicant, which is why Google Maps was mentioned. We do that in order that we can display our calculation to the student. That goes out in either an award or a refusal letter and that can be challenged. It is important to note that if the calculation is in any way close to that threshold, it is given a manual review as well. Consequently, if it is in any way close, we check whether it is correct and whether we can adjust things.