Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

First, I did not make a mess of SUSI and a mess has not been made of SUSI. SUSI was obliged to start from a base in which certain things had to be learned and the body that undertook this project, the City of Dublin Vocational Education Committee, encountered start-up difficulties, which I have recognised. As for the questions the Deputy has just raised, I have been assured by the Higher Education Authority, HEA, that all the colleges have special assistance programmes to assist financially and otherwise students who are disadvantaged as a result of not being able to access the grants to which they are entitled. I have been told by the HEA that additional resources were made available to the various colleges where that was necessary. If someone has had the experience the Deputy has described, I do not doubt the accuracy of what the Deputy is saying, then redress was available for the person at the time. If the Deputy wishes to provide me with the details, I certainly will find out what happened. While I will take the queries the Deputy has raised to SUSI as it currently is and will get specific responses for the Deputy, with more than 60,000 students I cannot give to the Deputy the kind of assurance that each one of these 60,000 cases most definitely will be dealt with expeditiously, when this never was the case when there were 66 different awarding bodies.

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