Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I suggest between now and the next meeting we think about who we should bring in from the third level sector.

I wrote to the committee about UCC. For a third level college to spend €500,000 on a partnership with Cork Opera House is one matter. The reply to that from UCC was that funding from UCC comes from non-taxpayer revenues. However, we need to have public revenues in the first place to be able to generate non-taxpayer revenues. We have had this debate here for hours with all third level colleges. The partnership and the link-up is a separate matter. To claim the college has non-taxpayer generated revenue, when the reason it has income in the first place is because of taxpayer funds, is a laugh.