Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will address Senator Ruane's point first. I would welcome any suggestions to make the Estimates easier to understand. I have spent most of my life on the Senator's side of the table and I fully appreciate her point. We have been trying to make it better. What goes into the REV, the Estimates book, is something that the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform does right across the whole system. We would be very anxious to work with the Senator to have better presentation and more meaningful output indicators or whatever is needed. Our action plan for education will give a set of outcomes that we are tracking. On the data requirement, one does not get all the data one would like on outcomes the way one does with inputs because they are not so well established. We can report on inputs very accurately every quarter. With regard to how the money is allocated, there is what is called no policy change. That involves some decisions taken by Government that had a funding element and are in place. Such decisions would be in the no policy change allocation. If one looks at the Estimates one will see the €500 million allocated in June to health is carried into the 2017 Estimates. There is also the issue of demographics, which is carried in. The €610 million is predominantly for new initiatives but not exclusively because there are some elements such as the negotiation of changes in the Lansdowne Road agreement that are not provided for in those. There are some policy elements, as we were just discussing, around resource teaching and SNAs and because they are demand-led they are not provided in the same way. It is a mixture of momentum that is already clear and new initiatives. It is not all new initiatives in simple terms.

The extent of the difference between first and second level and third level surprised me coming in. In first and second level there are pupil-teacher ratios, PTRs, demographics and capital programmes but that is not true of higher education. The Cassells report has underlined that the model used in recent years, where State provision was reduced at third level to protect primary and secondary level, is not a sustainable way to go on. While initially they were able to expand numbers and take in new students, the system is now creaking and we need to look to the future. That is where Cassells has come in. I look forward to coming back to the committee.

While there is a short-term need and we must fight for resources for higher education as best we can in the Estimates process, the Cassells report is looking at a longer perspective and is going right out 15 years. It throws up the issue of how we have a sustainable funding model for the sector. While I will be fighting for resources for third level, in addition to many other important areas which the Deputy also dealt with, the issue with the Cassells report is whether we can agree some sort of a long-term funding model that would be sustainable. He has thrown up the issue of whether we should be looking beyond the Exchequer, where education has to compete with health, housing and all the others, and whether there should be some other sources of funding. Members have different views on it so I will not go into those today. As my Department does not have primary responsibility for Science Foundation Ireland, SFI, or the programme for research in third level institutions, PRTLI, I cannot fully answer for the extent to which PRTLI versus SFI influences the mix of provision.

There are programmes specifically aimed at attracting new academics to locate in Ireland. Our Department is involved in the roll-out of Innovation 2020, which is one of the areas where potential initiatives could be competing for funding.

As for the international education strategy, there are about 33,000 students in higher education and approximately 100,000 are doing teaching English as a foreign language, TEFL, courses.

The ambition is to further grow those areas. Both have been significant growth areas in recent years, and Enterprise Ireland, EI, is a key player in that. I will go on a trade mission to China next month promoting Ireland as a location and virtually all the institutes of education will be on that mission. This is very much an integrated area of activity. EI is the front marketing element. It has created a common brand to promote it and it is looking to better quality controls, particularly in the English language area, for the future. There are many stakeholders involved and we can provide more information on that.

I have taken the Senator's point on dyscalculia. I understand it is recognised as an area of difficulty. It is described in the jargon as high incidence rather than low incidence, but in that respect it is in the same category as dyslexia. I will certainly ask the National Council for Special Education, NCSE, whether that is an element the system is not adequately addressing. I understand that being a high-incidence phenomenon, it is provided for in what the NCSE calls the learning support, which is a 20% uplift of teacher numbers in each school. It is from that 20% that, generally, needs of that nature are to be addressed rather than the individual assessment that drives the allocation of a special needs assistant, SNA, to a pupil or whatever.