Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I join the Chairman in welcoming the HEA CEO, Mr. Tom Boland, and his colleagues, Mr. Costello and Ms Fitzgerald. I thank them for their presentations.

At the end of his presentation, Mr. Boland said there were many grounds for optimism, but he said we urgently need to address the unavoidable connections between the funding of higher education and research, the number of graduates, the quality of graduates and research outcomes and the health of our economy and society. The overall theme coming through is that although the HEA is doing much good work in terms of what is available to it, as an overseeing and managing body for the third level sector it has grave concerns over the sector's ability to perform the task expected of it without urgent address of the funding situation.

Mr. Boland also mentioned his concern that the follow-through on the recommendations from the group under Mr. Cassells might take two to three years. I ask him to flesh out further his concern over that. I also ask him to take us through the discussions that have taken place over the past four or five years over funding of the sector. It seems to have been kicked around a bit and several reports have been commissioned. However, it seems that action continues to be delayed. I am concerned that the latest working group under Mr. Cassells is leading to further delay rather than action on previous recommendations.

I ask for an update on the technological universities, particularly in the south east. On clustering and the HEA's work with the ITS, there has been some concern in recent times that there has been some mission drift from the IT sector relative to the original objectives. Is that a matter of concern for the HEA? Is it being addressed?