Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This is obviously a key issue for third level funding. Subhead C4 addresses the general grant to the universities, the institutes of technology and other institutes of higher education. Could the Minister comment on the fact that this money is totally insufficient in terms of educating our young people? Is he satisfied with that and with the drop in the international rankings that has resulted from the terrible level of funding in this sector? What exactly is being proposed to deal with this? Having set us the task of looking at the Cassells report, the Minister appears to be doing some work parallel to this that was not apparent until he was questioned in the Dáil. Will the Minister expand on this as well?