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

I believe it is the case that in the institute of technology sector in particular, the institutes statutorily are not allowed to run a deficit and consequently must balance their books by the end of each year. Is it the case that a certain number of institutions are telling the Minister they will be in the red at the end of the year unless there is a bailout in the form of this front-loading of the student contribution fee? If this is a factor, is it only a factor at the level of the institutes of technology and if so, how many institutes of technology might be in that situation? Is this also the position at university level?

The student contribution charge has increased from €2,000 to €3,000 during the past four to five years. Is it the case, and the Minister might be able to explain this, that as that additional amount of student contribution has been paid for grant students by the Government to the college, the amount being paid in other capitation fees and grants to the colleges has been reduced commensurate to that? The additional €250 imposed on students each year has not been an additional €250 each year per student going to the universities.

This is a €1.5 billion additional Estimate, of which the €175 million with which we are dealing with today is part. It came in at the side of the scrum, so to speak, in that it was not flagged. It was a surprise. It certainly was not part of parties' budgetary projections. My understanding is that taking it as a whole, €1.5 billion is now built into the system in that it is recurring expenditure. Therefore, is the net Supplementary Estimate of €175 million for education this year now built into the budget for next year?