Mr. Seán Ó Foghlú:

I am not an expert on the medical cards issue. The difference between SUSI and grants schemes in other areas is there is a once-off deadline. It is a grant application for somebody to start college at a certain time and people have an expectation that they will know whether their student contribution will be paid or whether they will receive a maintenance grant.

They want to know as early as possible, of course, but they have only decided to go to college a short time before that for definite. That is different, if one likes, from the medical cards where a demand comes on, but not everyone is applying at the same time. There is a slightly different applications challenge for us. We thought we were trying to address it to a certain extent by having the initial online application, which did help. One of the lessons we are likely to take is we need to go a lot further than that in terms of getting information in advance from people who wish and are very likely to go on to college in its various forms and for which student support is available.