Concerns expressed by students last week that Dublin Corporation was no longer taking phone enquiries about their grants have been allayed.

According to Fiona Richardson, a higher education grants officer with Dublin Corporation, the office was not taking calls last Tuesday afternoon and all day last Wednesday.

"It's the first time we've done this all year," she said, explaining that the second instalments are coming out soon and they want to get them out on time. In previous years they had taken calls in the afternoon, but this year because of the volume of enquiries, they could not do that. "We've 2,000 payments to get through, this week," she said.

A number of students told Will Nelson, welfare officer at DIT Kevin Street, that they could not get through to Dublin Corporation's grants office and had been told that calls from students were not being accepted.

The students had wanted to enquire about the first instalment of their grants, which they had not yet received. When he tried calling on their behalf, Nelson had been told that the department would not be taking calls for most of last week as the office was concentrating on processing grants.

New Department of Education and Science figures indicate that Dublin Corporation has paid 1,576 of the 1,626 grants approved. State-wide, 18,198 of 19,664 first instalments of higher education grants approved have been paid to date.