Professor John Boland:

I thank the Chair and members. I am dean of research at Trinity College Dublin and a former director of the CRANN institute. As such, I will speak to the committee from the perspective of the student pipeline, the training necessary and the impact in terms of innovation. As a nation, we share a deep understanding of the value of education which provides the single biggest economic return to the State and the individual. Ireland's future prosperity, like that of other developed nations, depends on the quality of the education we provide to our citizens. Universities are now recognised as the engines of modern economies, generating talent, engaging with enterprise and creating new ideas and the technologies of tomorrow. Universities are Ireland's front line in the global battle for talent.

Our economic ambitions are embodied in Innovation 2020 which details the investment needed for Ireland to become a technology leader. The entire Innovation 2020 strategy assumes a well-resourced and fully-functional third-level sector. Despite our shared values and stated ambitions, years of underinvestment have brought the Irish university system to breaking point, a crisis heightened by the emergence of protectionist ideologies in the UK and USA. As a small open economy, we compete in an increasingly complex and globalised world. Increasingly, we do so without the capacity to develop our human capital fully. The competition for talent is intense and knows no national boundaries. Every day, we hear of demand for skilled workers and many of these positions are now being filled by overseas talent. Our situation is perilous with our corporation tax advantage being eroded and the emergence of tax barriers jeopardising our position as a European hub. Maximising the potential of our indigenous talent is our only realistic strategy. There is no plan B.

The decline in third level funding is well documented. For example, Trinity's income from the Exchequer has dropped from 80% of total income to just 40% in the last ten years. Trinity has done everything possible to cut costs and generate new income and those cuts have had a significant impact. Class sizes have increased dramatically and small group teaching, a central provision of third level, is becoming impossible. Students in science and technology take fewer laboratory practicals while humanities' students get the bare minimum of contact hours. To be honest, we cannot right now meet the needs of our own students and truly have little capacity to attract the best students from overseas. If left unchecked, this situation risks dumbing down the courses we offer and ultimately the loss of accreditation of professional degrees. Even new income streams pose challenges. We now face the very real risk of replacing qualified Irish students with less qualified non-EU students. We are also shutting off sources of philanthropic funding as donors are increasingly unwilling to fill the gap left by the shortfall in State support for public universities. This is a really serious problem.

An immediate consequence of underfunding is a slide in Irish universities down the international rankings tables. There is a direct and unambiguous correlation between our ranking level and funding into the system. Rankings are imperfect but they really matter in a globalised world. Many countries will no longer provide scholarships to their students to study abroad in poorly ranked universities, which closes off that income stream. Even now, the IDA is being challenged to explain the disconnect between the talent pool we have on offer and the rankings of our universities. That disconnect is real and obvious.

As parents we are heavily vested in primary and secondary education, taking active roles in our children's schoolwork and extra-curricular activities. It is not so for third level. Admission to university is often seen by parents as the end of the journey and the culmination of hard work rather than as an important step along the path of lifelong learning. The result is a completely unjustified confidence in the health of the third-level sector with profound consequences for the public support of Irish universities. We need a more holistic view of education which recognises the benefits it provides to the State and the individual.

The third-level sector is in need of investment, not additional funding. Investment means carefully examining the outcomes for individual students and the State. Investment means not rewarding HEIs based simply on student numbers, as we currently do, but including consideration of outcomes that reflect quality such as the employability of our students, levels of non-Exchequer funding, patents, licences and spin-outs. For students, the outcome needs to focus on the capacity to secure suitable employment. The Cassells report correctly recommends that a component of this investment should be in the form of income-contingent loans. Students should be required to repay loans only if they materially benefit. Without a completely new approach to investment in third level, we will never reach our true potential as a people or as a society.