Dr. Maria Hinfelaar:

Deputy McConalogue queried how we achieved the efficiencies and significant savings while maintaining quality and increased productivity. It is fair to say the Croke Park agreement was instrumental in that. In the IOT sector, academic staff are delivering an increase of 15% in contact hours. Contact hours have increased from 16 hours to 18 hours per week or 18 hours per week to 20 hours per week. It is maximising that. That has helped to absorb some of the cuts. There have been very significant and severe pay cuts in the sector which has obviously reduced the cost base. The cost base has decreased, the teaching hours have gone up at the same time and once one starts adding that up, clearly one will have more capacity with the same level of resources. At a very simple level that is how that was done.

I refer to the question asked by Deputy Jonathan O'Brien and another Deputy whether the TUs versus institutes of technology would lead to a third tier. It is a complex question and not confined to our sector alone. I refer to the most recent pronouncements by the Minister who talked about a strong institute of technology sector sitting alongside the successfully amalgamated and redesignated institutions that would become the TUs. There is a great need for that mix of institutions.

In my view and that of my colleagues, this suggests that a strong IOT sector does not mean a stripped-down version of a current institute of technology with a narrower range of disciplines on offer or impoverished offerings of levels of qualifications. That is how we would see the system going. Our hope is that the investment in all our institutions such as incubation centres, applied research, enhancement grants by Enterprise Ireland, specialised equipment for very specialised areas, whether in bio-science or IT, would be maintained. We hope to be able to contribute to our regional economies as well as to international networks, whether our future is as individual or amalgamated institutes of technology or indeed, technological universities. It is important to safeguard the investment in the sector. We will be keeping an eye on this situation and we will try to drive that agenda.