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

I thank the Minister for his reply and welcome the publication of the report on SUSI. The fact that over half of students were not paid their grant until after Christmas last year was totally unacceptable. It led to some students having to drop out of college and exceptional financial duress on families which had to support students in college while they were waiting for a grant to come through.

The report by Accenture reviewed what went wrong within SUSI and has made recommendations on what should happen this year. Much of them are already in train. The report did not cover how it came to be in the first place that SUSI was established in a way that led to its failure. The Department had a role in that so has the Minister conducted any review on how SUSI was awarded the tender in the first place and the oversight and assessment of that process? From the outset it seemed clear that it would not work. Although it was a key project, it led to serious hardship on students. Not only do we have to learn the lessons of what went wrong with SUSI when it was established, but we must also learn lessons on the award of the contract in the first place. What was the role of the Minister and the Department in that context? Has there been an internal investigation to ensure these mistakes will not be made again?

See this speech in context