In addition, last June the Minister announced the implementation and operation of a central online system for the administration of student grants. That implementation has been disastrous under his watch. The system is failing abysmally, as third level students throughout Ireland are yet to receive decisions, let alone the grants themselves, on their applications. The Minister has confirmed that up to 40% of applications are being returned as incomplete, which flies in the face of the scheme's raison d'être, that is, to be fail-safe. Many students must resubmit their applications and decisions have only been issued in respect of 22% of all applications. Up to 50,000 students are waiting. This is unacceptable.

These chronic delays have serious implications for students. Worryingly, there is anecdotal evidence of students dropping out of college because of a lack of certainty. We are also hearing that students cannot register properly and are being denied access to various campus services. Many students are suffering a great deal of stress and deep anxiety.

Approximately 65 staff are doing the work that up to 60 local authorities did previously. Will the Government intervene in this unprecedented crisis in the administration of student grants and get the Higher Education Authority, HEA, the City of Dublin Vocational Education Committee, CDVEC, which administers Student Universal Support Ireland, SUSI, which is the grants system, and the university authorities to ensure we have a student-centric approach to the crisis? Students are number one. Everyone else must work to that end, not towards their own institutional or territorial concerns. This is the critical issue. Will the Tánaiste confirm that the Minister will take charge of this fiasco? He has washed his hands of it to date.

He might give a subvention.

He might pledge us.

Fianna Fáil's hard neck never ceases to amaze.

Press the button.

That old song is well worn out.

Change the tape.

Press replay.

Deputy Mattie McGrath left Fianna Fáil. He does not need to defend it.

What about the students?

The student registration fee was increased by Fianna Fáil by almost 1,000% between 1997 and when it left office in 2011.

We did not promise to decrease it.

Deputy, please.

Fianna Fáil is in no position to talk.

We never claimed that we would not do it.

We did not deceive the electorate.

For years, Fianna Fáil referred to the necessity to rationalise the way in which the student grants system was being administered. Some 66 local authorities and VECs dealt with student grants.

Empowering local authorities.

The Minister for Education and Skills has given that role to one body, namely, SUSI, which is being run by the CDVEC and has responsibility for the processing-----

The Minister has responsibility.

-----of student grants for first-time applicants. Student grant applications for existing grant holders continue to be processed by local authorities and VECs.

They are getting paid.

The Minister for Education and Skills is on top of this issue.

Sitting on top of it.

Regarding the impact on students, potential concerns among those whose grants have not yet come through and possibly being put at some disadvantage in terms of participating in college, doing exams and so on-----

Some 70%.

-----the Minister has directed the HEA to ensure the universities and institutes of technology, ITs, do not put any student whose grant has not yet come through at a disadvantage.

The Tánaiste is too removed.

Will the Government open a soup kitchen for them?

There were 66,000 completed applications for student grants this year, of which 18,000 have been completed and awarded, provisionally awarded or refused.

Some 20%.

This is November.

SUSI is awaiting documentation on 21,000 applications. The remain 27,000 applications are being processed. Additional staff have been provided to accelerate the processing, which is proceeding at a rate of 800 applications per day. CDVEC's chief executive officer, whose authority now has responsibility for this matter, is due to appear before the Joint Committee on Education and Social Protection in the near future to address members' questions on this issue.

There is no chance that the Minister will address them.

The Tánaiste and the Minister, Deputy Quinn, shamelessly used the students of Ireland to help them get into power. Once they were in power, they discarded the students and broke every solemn pledge given to them. There is no point in the Minister nodding his head. He signed the pledge in ink. It was a scandalous, cynical election pledge that meant nothing. It meant nothing to him to make it and it meant nothing to him to break it. This is my fundamental point. There is no use in the Tánaiste trying to blame anyone else for the disastrous implementation of the online grant administration system. It is the Minister's baby. He announced it in June to the effect that it would be fail-safe. Up to 50,000 students are awaiting decisions. This is unprecedented and unacceptable. The snail's pace progress to which the Tánaiste alluded in his reply-----

A question, please.

-----is also unacceptable.

It demands a far more urgent and critical response from Government and the Minister. The thousands of students concerned are not interested in the chief executive officer coming into an Oireachtas committee next week to answer questions from Deputies which-----

Sorry, Deputy, we are over time. Could I have your question, please?

-----of course is a classic attempt by the Minister to try to deflect attention from his responsibility to come to terms with this issue in an urgent way. Additional staff, over and above the number allocated, need to be appointed to ensure a far faster operation so that students are dealt with far more quickly than currently and that the doubt, anxiety, stress and the potential risk of students pulling out of college is avoided. Will the Tánaiste agree to much more urgent intervention from the Minister than we have had to date? The bodies concerned should also be brought in because the universities are not applying themselves properly here nor is the HEA or the CDVEC.

One student in County Donegal-----

Thank you very much, Deputy. We are way over time.

-----was told not to re-apply by registered post because there was no one at the office to sign for it. That is the level of what we are dealing with it.

The Minister is dealing with this urgently. The problem of delays in the processing of student grants is not a 2012 problem.

This one is.

Please allow the Tánaiste to reply.

The problem of student grants not being processed and delays at local authority and VEC levels in the processing of student grants has gone on for years. Some local authorities were far worse than others.

This is the first time the system of processing student grants has been rationalised into a single body. There have been delays in the processing of student grants. I do not think it is in anybody's interest that Deputy Martin should try to exaggerate and frighten people. There is no need for anybody to be talking in terms of withdrawing from college. The Minister for Education and Skills has already made it clear, through the Higher Education Authority-----

Deputy Martin should listen to the answer.

He is not interested.

He keeps chattering and twittering instead of listening to the answer I am giving. If he is serious about the issue-----

I am very serious.

-----I am quite happy to give him the answer.

We are way over time.

Deputy Martin should at least afford me the courtesy of listening to the answer I am giving him. The Minister for Education and Skills has already made it clear through the Higher Education Authority, to the universities and the institutes of technology that no student whose grant has not yet come through should be disadvantaged in terms of participating in college, attending classes or lectures, doing exams and so on. Let us kill that issue of students having to leave college once and for all. That is not going to happen-----

It is happening.

-----because the Minister for Education and Skills has already dealt with that.

Additional staff have been provided to speed up the processing of grant applications. They are now being processed at a rate of 800 a day. There is, however, an outstanding problem, and there is no point ignoring it. Some of the application forms are incomplete and information is still required.

Do not blame the students.

We are over time. Sorry, Tánaiste, this matter can be dealt with by way of a parliamentary question.

If the application form has not been fully completed, it must be completed and the full information given to the City of Dublin VEC so it can complete the processing of the application.

Some 27,000 have not even been checked by SUSI.