Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

The Higher Education Authority is the statutory planning and policy development body for higher education and research in Ireland. It is the primary funding authority for the universities, institutes of technology, teacher training colleges and a number of other designated education bodies. Over 90% of its income comes directly from Vote 26 - Education and Skills, with the balance consisting largely of research funding from Vote 32 - Business, Enterprise and Innovation. It had gross expenditure of €1.17 billion in 2017. As shown in the graph, the bulk of that expenditure was in the form of grants to education bodies for specified purposes, either current spending, including fee recoupment to colleges, or capital project funding and research funding. I issued a clear audit opinion on the HEA's 2017 financial statements.