Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 7 March 2013
4. Deputy Charlie McConalogue asked the Minister for Education and Skills if it is true that he had just one informal meeting with the CEO of City of Dublin Vocational Education Committee and that there was no other correspondence between his office and the CDVEC during the entire four months of the student grant crisis; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12115/13]
View answerIn accordance with normal protocol, it is the function of officials to conduct business with the chief executive officer of the City of Dublin VEC on the operation of Student Universal Support Ireland, SUSI, and to report to me on developments as appropriate. While I had a meeting with the CEO, my views are communicated to the chief executive officer by my officials through this process.
When SUSI was established, a project team comprising Department officials, the chief executive officer and other senior SUSI staff was set up to oversee the implementation of the operation, to respond to issues arising and to report to me on how the operation is progressing.
This team convenes on a weekly basis and regular processing reports are compiled by SUSI and made available to the Department. These reports are sent to me by my officials who also keep me fully orally briefed on the situation.
I thank the Minister for his reply.
In the economic times in which we have found ourselves recently with the financial pressures that are on families, particularly those sending students to school and, most of all, third level, it is a travesty that the biggest cause of financial hardship and stress in the past academic year for those families has been the Minister's failure to properly implement the centralisation of grants. For months after the academic year started, students and families throughout the country were struggling to try to keep their children in college. There were families who were waiting on the special rate of maintenance grant of over €6,000 who are dependent entirely on social welfare who had to try to keep their child in accommodation and in maintenance in college while they waited, in many instances until early in the new year, to receive their grant.
Through the freedom of information request to which I referred in the question, my party has found out that during that period the Minister met the City of Dublin VEC, the body in charge of SUSI, on one occasion only. Today, the Minister stated that normal protocol is that he engages through his officials. He had no problem in coming up front when he established SUSI and enlightening us all on how it would be a key initiative within the Department. The Minister was taking political leadership of it then. However, there was no sign - the evidence now points this out and the Minister admitted it here today as well - of him taking that political leadership in the crisis when thousands of students were not getting their grants as a result of the failure of the Minister's project. It is most disappointing.
I would ask the Minister to at least ensure that he does not repeat those mistakes. Unfortunately, having listened to his earlier response on the capital assets test, the Minister is talking about a report on how grants will be assessed next year not coming before Cabinet until, perhaps, Easter. He also referred to legislation being required to implement that and to what will happen in terms of getting grants processed properly for next year. This is also unacceptable.
I would ask the Minister one question. Why, when there was such a crisis in the student grant submission system, did the Minister not take control personally and show the leadership required to get it addressed? It was not resolved, with many students waiting until the new year to be paid.
The Deputy's freedom of information request was such that he did not necessarily get the entire picture. The implementation group comprises officials from the Department, the chief executive officer of the CDVEC and senior SUSI personnel, and I get regular reports after they meet. I would never attempt to chair that meeting or project-manage that group myself.
However, 13 group meetings took place between 16 November 2011 and 24 September 2012. In addition 19 meetings took place on a weekly basis between 15 October 2012 and 3 March 2013. Meetings were held on a monthly basis prior to the October 2012 process. These project-group meetings are continuing to be held on a weekly basis. SUSI was a national agency processing in an unsatisfactory way, as I have said, and we will learn from that. In terms of the impact on families across the country, comparing like with like - in other words where we were in terms of the processing of the 66 various bodies that processed heretofore and SUSI - SUSI was approximately a week ahead in the relative comparisons. The main difference was that we now had one centralised figure, whereas previously we had 66 figures. There were difficulties for families in the past, which was one of the reasons SUSI was established. The Deputy's fellow county-man, the president of the USI, will tell him that from his knowledge the previous situation was unsatisfactory. Owing to the distress being caused for some families, which I openly admit, we made an additional €3 million available through the HEA for the welfare officers in all the third level offices to address the kinds of hardship problems the Deputy mentioned.
Given the particular problems, the Minister's hands-off approach was not acceptable. When we tabled a Private Members' motion highlighting the issue, the Minister's initial reply was that he would have a conversation with SUSI on foot of this Legislature stating publicly and democratically that we had a problem. That problem was clearly highlighted in advance of that, but it was only after it was brought to the floor of the House that the Minister started to deal with it. We need to stop repeating this fallacy that SUSI was a week ahead or somehow comparable to what happened in the past.
Could the Deputy ask his supplementary question, please?
I know there were certain issues with how particular local authorities were handling it in the past. The Minister's objective was to equal or improve on that. The reality was that he equalised that by making it equally poor for everyone in the past year. We need to ensure it does not happen next year.
Thank you.
Given the delays in the capital asset test, I have concerns that we are going about it the wrong way again this year.
In addition to the meeting to which the reply to the question refers, I have had numerous telephone conversations with the chief executive officer, Ms Jacinta Stewart, arising from my receipt of reports and my concern over the lack of progress, as I perceived it.
