Ms Jacinta Stewart:

Yes. Accenture used the term "KPI", key performance indicators. To answer Deputy Dooley's questions, we have been giving those returns to the Department on a weekly basis. A total of 2,666 appeals were refused and it was because the original decisions were sound. We expect 75,000 new applications and 25,000 renewals this year, so approximately 100,000 in total. Deputies Butler and McConalogue asked about the possibility that people could provide returns going back two years. That would have to be part of the statutory instrument that comes in each March or April. There is processing that is currently taking place, along with IT development and business improvement. We need to examine that in terms of business improvement and ask if there are implications there that we need to think out, not just for ourselves but also for the Department, and we must think of national implications. For PAYE people one would be looking at 2012, whereas for farmers and the self-employed it would be 2011. One of the questions would be whether that matters. It must be examined and that would be part of our business improvement process.

We had three staff in January 2012, 28 in April, 57 in June, 78 in September and 98 in December. Redeployment was just coming in as a new development at that stage and that is part of the reason for the slowness of staffing in the early stages.

I did not know Deputy Dooley had rung the office, so I apologise. In its first year SUSI processed 70,000 applications in a situation in which 95% of our staff were new. We provided full training and developed a range of quality assurance checks across different levels. However, as in any people-based assessment system, human errors occurred. The student grant scheme is complicated and, by its nature, strictly defined and does not allow for exceptions. Almost 40,000 students have been awarded and paid grants for 2012-2013. Eight out of ten of those were awarded by the beginning of the second term. As the Accenture report states, regardless of the issues, both SUSI and our stakeholders rose to the challenge and tried to meet the targets. Deputy Dooley asked who was to blame. One of the things we tried to hold together in this is not to blame anybody. We had a problem and we tried to deal with it and sort it out. We were on a steep learning curve and I hope the results of that will be reflected in our 2013-2014 performance.

I will ask Mr. Connolly to answer Senator Moran's questions about quality control.