Aisling Dolan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister, Deputy Harris, and the Minister of State, Deputy Collins. It is fantastic to get the update and I thank them for it. We note from the TURN report that digital literacy and skills are crucial, particularly in the regional areas we are looking at. I welcome the investment of more than €65 million. The student experience was spoken about, which is crucial for me. I would like to find out how we will ensure the balance of lecturers to students as we are reducing the number of students per lecturer in our colleges. The technological universities are focusing on the national framework of qualifications, NFQ, levels 6 to 10.

I was happy to hear about the international review of the Athlone Institute of Technology and Limerick Institute of Technology, AIT-LIT, consortium. What are the next steps? The Connacht Ulster Alliance was one of two mentioned as coming in shortly. Senator Cummins asked me to raise the TU in the south east and the importance of that. I suppose that application will be coming in soon.

Embedding with industry is crucial, especially in regional areas. I would like to ask about Science Foundation Ireland, SFI, and the Irish Research Council, IRC, two agencies under the remit of the Minister, Deputy Harris. How will they engage with technological universities? I refer to start-ups and SMEs, in particular. Does the Minister have foresight on how it will work? I refer to Enterprise Ireland and the research offices and commercialisation.

Last week, the Technological Higher Education Association, THEA, spoke to us about sustainability and the reference in the Cassells report to Exchequer and EU funding in relation to sustainability. Solidarity with the community is also key. It is something we want to see with our technological universities. The key part is human capital. How will we ensure the people we hire within these technological universities have dedicated research time?