Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his response and for the updated figures. Once again I acknowledge the approach he took last week in that he took responsibility for this issue, which is very important and welcome. I said at the time that I felt the Minister also needed to take responsibility to ensure students would be paid before Christmas and I asked that he meet SUSI and tease out exactly where things were. In his response, he might outline what meetings he has had with SUSI in the past week and if he had any meetings in the preceding weeks.

I see from the Minister's updated figures that 22,000 applications have been decided on. Last week, it was 20,000 and approximately two weeks ago, it was 18,000. In the past week, the number of applications decided on increased by 2,000. Last week, SUSI outlined and, indeed, the Minister said in the Dáil, that decisions would be running at a rate of 800 per day up to maybe 1,300. That is obviously not happening. Unless that happens quickly, there is no way the number the Minister outlined today of 33,000 awards will be made by the end of the year.

Staff in county councils and VECs throughout the country, who are trained in this, have now finished processing the grant applications of continuing students. Has the Minister considered engaging them to assist?

At a rate of 2,000 per week with six weeks to Christmas, only an additional 12,000 applications will be decided by Christmas. One would expect the staff working on this to be at maximum level, so unless further action is taken, many students who are in exceptionally precarious financial circumstances will continue to suffer.

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