FF slams Quinn's 'abysmal' handling of grants controversy
The performance of the Education Minister Ruairi Quinn in dealing with the controversy over the processing of grant applications has been described as "abysmal" by Fianna Fáil.
The party is calling for more resources to be allocated to the new centralised agency tasked with processing grants.
Student Universal Support Ireland (SUSI) has come in for criticism over the failure to process thousands of maintenance grants.
The Minister for Education has also said the delays in the grant process are not satisfactory.
The Chief Executive of SUSI, the organisation overseeing the new college grants system, insists it is working.
Only 20,000 of the 66,000 students who have applied for third-level financial support have been processed.
Student Universal Support Ireland has received 175,000 calls from concerned students.
Jacinta Stewart, the head of the City of Dublin Vocational Education Committee which is running SUSI, said: "The system is working but we need it to work faster.
"We have taken a number of measures to make the system work faster, we have scaled up the staff at the support desk in line with the calls. We have put more staff into the assessment unit, we have increased text and email communications."
Fianna Fáil has tabled a motion calling on the Education Minister to provide more staff and resources to the agency to ensure that students get their money.
