Clare Daly (Dublin North, Socialist Party)
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106. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills his views on inaccurate information being communicated by Student Universal Support Ireland to Deputies' offices regarding updating the status of individual student grants and fees (details supplied). [8646/14]

Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)
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The service referred to by the Deputy is one element of a comprehensive customer service and communications strategy provided by Student Universal Support Ireland (SUSI) and meets an identified need for applicants who choose to engage the assistance of their public representatives in making enquiries about their grant applications. In some cases, applicants may opt not to use the established channels provided by SUSI, including online application tracking, a dedicated website, a telephone helpdesk, email and social media, including Facebook and Twitter. SUSI wishes to ensure that all necessary avenues are open to such applicants to receive the information they need.

The Deputy will appreciate that in the context of Student Universal Support Ireland (SUSI) dealing with in excess of 92,000 new and renewal applications in the 2013/14 academic year that every effort is made by SUSI to ensure that queries are dealt with correctly and in a timely manner but that some errors may inevitably arise when handling a high volume of queries within a relatively short timeframe. This error occurred in the case the Deputy referred to and is regretted.

Officials in my Department have confirmed with SUSI, that the application of the student referred to by the Deputy has been awarded a grant and an award letter issued on the 17th February 2014.