Jack Wall (Kildare South, Labour)
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Question 460: To ask the Minister for Education and Science if her attention has been drawn to the problems that VECs and so on have in processing grant applications; if her further attention has been drawn to the fact that these delays caused by lack of personnel to deal with the numbers of applications, is creating major problems for the applicants in that it could be three months after the application is submitted that an applicant is notified of the result of their application; her plans to deal with this problem; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [36198/06]

Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)
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I am not aware of delays in the payment of grants for the reasons referred to by the Deputy. The organisation and management of student support scheme grants is a matter for individual Vocational Educational Committees. Each Vocational Educational Committee receives a block staffing complement from my Department which affords VECs considerable flexibility to meet the various needs of the committee and its schools including the operation of the student support grant scheme. It is a matter for each Vocational Educational Committee to decide how to deploy its staff.

The Deputy will be aware of my determination to ensure that students get decisions on their grant applications and get paid within a short period of time. To this end the new Student Support Bill will provide for a service level agreement that will include specific deadlines to be met in processing applications and in making payments. While this new system will not come into effect until next year, I am anxious that students should not be waiting unreasonable amounts of time in the current academic year. If the Deputy wants to make me aware of precisely which VEC(s) he is referring to, I will ask my officials to contact them.