Caít Keane (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

A comment was made in passing that the debate on the Seanad will be dirty. It has not been dirty thus far and I hope that remains the case. I hope it is informed and instructive. Deputy Regina Doherty did not know the Seanad existed in 2007. There are a lot of people like her. I hope there is a bicameral versus unicameral debate.

I ask about the SUSI grants. A significant number of students are in distress, having been informed at this late stage that their applications were denied or that their appeals were not submitted in time, even though they may have e-mail confirmation that they submitted on time. I acknowledge that the Minister for Education and Skills apologised for the SUSI system approximately two months ago. I ask him to investigate it further because it is still not working. Students cannot access the system or are being refused grants even though they have e-mail confirmations that their applications were received. A student from County Donegal who was interviewed on "Morning Ireland" today was originally refused and subsequently given a grant. RTE was told about this before the student found out. In theory the system should be working well because it reduced the former 55 authorities to one agency. Theory is good but actually working on the ground is a different matter. It does not seem to be working. I want the Minister to do more than apologise. He should get to the roots of the problems because this distress cannot continue. I know of one student who is at the end of her first year in college and cannot afford to continue on to second year. It cannot go on like this.

I support Senator Bacik in her call for gender diversity. The Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government introduced a quota of 30% for women in politics. We cannot change a system from the outside; it must be changed from within. Until such time as we get more women into the system, it will not change. Women of Ireland have an opportunity to bring change from within.