Professor Diarmuid Hegarty:

I was delighted to hear from Mr. Miley that international recruitment is lifting. The benefit to the Irish economy of the active policy on the part of the universities and the THEA sector in terms of recruiting international students has saved Irish education. That has been a tremendous piece of work and it is important that is understood and appreciated. We in the private sector have known that we rely very much upon international recruitment.

To answer the question posed by Senator Malcolm Byrne about the impact of reducing fees, that has competition implications. We feel that we are in competition with institutions and at a disadvantage because of State funding. That will be intensified and is something we will have to look at.

A question was asked on costs. In the public sector, a degree course costs on average between €9,000 and €10,000 depending on the course, while the average cost in the private sector is €6,500. That does not mean there is overspending in the public sector but probably reflects the fact that we have the opportunity to extract economies that the public sector does not have.

That is the reality and the comparison if you are looking for those figures.