Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Irish Universities Association receives €2.7 million directly from the universities to fund itself. It has a corporate governance role. It was not mentioned to us at all. We have spoken about this issue at length. This organisation mirrors the organisation for the education and training boards, Education and Training Boards Ireland, which receives €1.6 million. The organisation for the institutes of technology, the Technological Higher Education Association of Ireland, receives €1.1 million. The organisation for the universities, the Irish Universities Association, receives €2.7 million. This means that €5.4 million in public funding is going directly to organisations that are listed as private charities and are outside our remit. They have a fundamental role in establishing corporate governance for the entire third level sector - the education and training boards, the institutes of technology and the universities.

In all of our discussion with the people we have had in from the Department of Education and Skills, nobody saw fit to alert us that there was another group dealing with corporate governance. This is one of the issues in the Department of Education and Skills. The colleges and universities are financially independent but now this other tier has been established between the colleges, universities, ETBs and the Department. The Department is creating a hands-off situation by putting an intermediary body between us. Then there is the Higher Education Authority as well. We are not here to deal with policy. However, the €5.4 million has been spent by all these public bodies - all of it taxpayers' money - to put a cloak or a shield between them and the Department. This is one of the problems we have. They refer to their own organisation for corporate governance. The Department tells us it has no role.

I make this point by way of information for the public. It was interesting for me to come on it this week. It is a point we cannot ignore but we do not have to decide now how to deal with it. It is probably a good organisations but not a good staff. They seem to have an invisible hand in the education sector and no light seems to have been shone on it yet. I call Deputy Cullinane. Forgive me for talking for a few minutes but it can be seen where our work leads us. It was purely by accident, when I saw this report, that I wondered what this organisation was. I am thankful for the report but it would have been nice to have been told about these organisations in all the sessions we had up to now.