Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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406. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the reason the SUSI stakeholder desk phone lines were down recently; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34556/21]

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The SUSI Stakeholder Desk is a service provided by SUSI to respond to queries and representations made on behalf of students by third party advocates including Oireachtas members, student union representatives, guidance counsellors, citizens information staff and college access personnel. The Stakeholder Desk provides dedicated phone and e-mail access to the central SUSI administration where queries receive direct attention. Approximately 50 queries are received weekly of which approximately 20 are phone queries.

I have been advised by SUSI that the SUSI Stakeholder Desk phone service was unavailable on Monday 21 June and until 3pm on Tuesday 22 June. However, the e-mail service remained available throughout this period. The unavailability of the phone service was due to technical difficulties with a third party supplier data link that is used by the phone system. Identifying the root cause and implementing the required remedial actions was carried out by the supplier, resulting in the restoration of the service as soon as was possible.

To highlight that the email service remained available for stakeholders while the phone issue was being investigated and addressed, SUSI advised Oireachtas members of the issue by email on Monday 21 June and subsequently that it had been resolved.

The SUSI Support Desk that is provided as a primary direct contact point for students and receives approximately 5000 queries weekly was unaffected by this incident and operated as normal throughout this period.