Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator. That point about the additional places is worth briefly commenting on. This is a whole-of-Government effort, be it with the July stimulus, the last budget or now the additional places we got sanctioned by Government a few weeks ago. The further and higher education sector in Ireland has never been larger. Not only that, it has never been larger in areas where there are jobs for the future, be those around green skills or retrofitting and much of the work the Minister of State is leading on the apprenticeship agenda. We are beginning to see the real benefit of the human capital initiative in expanding graduate places and undergraduate courses in things like science, engineering and the likes as well. I acknowledge the huge amount of work and resources that went in there and thank in particular the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Michael McGrath, for working with us on that. He, I and the Government as a whole see a real part of our economic recovery being founded in properly expanding the further education, training and higher education space.

On the Cassells issue, while we will not have time to get into it today I always have to mention one thing when people raise it. The Senator did not do this but many people say it has been six years since the report was published and nothing has happened. That of course would be 100% untrue because in the years since the Cassells report was published, funding to the higher education sector has increased by around €500,000 or 40%. I still believe, and of course I would, that it is not sustainably funded and it needs to be properly funded and we have much work to do on that. It is important to say we are now funding higher education, exclusive of research, to the order of €1.98 billion. The Government has taken an approach in terms of loss income for all sectors of society that the Government does not cover loss of income. Thus the Government supports have been directly related to Covid-related costs and I would be first to acknowledge that does leave other challenges for the higher education sector around some of what we might call commercial losses. My Department is engaging intensively with the representative bodies to see how we monitor that first of all and then how we might be able to help in ways other than direct financial assistance from the Exchequer.

I am very much aware of the the matter of students who have had non EMA-approved vaccines and have heard from institutions on this. My Department, at official level, is engaging with officials in the Department of Health and we will be guided on thyat by a decision or policy direction from our public health officials and our Department of Health. The issue has not progressed further, to the best of my knowledge.

On the insurance matter, I must admit I do not have the latest on it with me so I will reply to the committee and the Senator on that in writing, if that is okay. I am very much aware of the issue and we have been working with the Departments of Justice and Finance to progress it.