Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

It is partly increased numbers.

It probably is the fact that the financial position in recent years has not allowed the Government to provide more funding for higher education, as it would have wished to do had more finance been available. Obviously, there are pressures at all levels of education. It is a matter of balancing and, for example, not wishing to increase class sizes at primary level possibly means one cannot then increase funding at higher education level. It is a matter of judgment when one is working with reduced budgets, with which my predecessor obviously was working. We have been fortunate in that we have had slight increases in budgets this year and last year because of the improved economy. I will not make a political speech about that but the reality is one must balance the different levels and try to do the best one can with the budget one has.