Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

With the number of speakers, I am not sure I will get through all my questions in eight minutes, never mind answers. In any event, I will do my best. The first thing I want to say, and I think the contribution made by Mr. Donohoe captures a fair bit of it, is that much of what we have been hearing in the last couple of meetings indicates that over the course of the last ten years or more, the higher and further education system has been forced to do so much more with less. It has now not only reached but gone beyond the point at which quality is suffering. There is no doubt that the situation is unsustainable. That manifests itself in many ways. Dr. Kennedy's point with regard to precarity is definitely a reflection of that fact as well.

I will put a question out there that is more from the research side of things. One of the policy issues we grapple with a lot is with regard to our under-resourced healthcare system, in many ways, in terms of various clinicians and psychologists in particular. Much of that comes back to the fact that we cannot magic up psychologists, physiotherapists and so on. One of the issues seems to be that to get into these positions and into doctor programmes, a person needs to acquire a certain amount of clinical experience. Dr. Younus might be able to take this point as well as the gentlemen from the IRC. Unless a person comes from money, it seems to be very difficult to acquire that clinical experience. It requires a person to undertake a lot of unpaid work, which is something people cannot afford to do, and that is a disincentive for people to going into those areas.

With regard to SFI and Dr. Seoighe, this idea of a national talent roadmap is interesting. What exactly would that involve? Obviously, people voluntarily take up positions or apply for streams of funding. Is it just about ensuring that the funding is in the right place and focused on the right areas? How exactly do we do that?

I thought the contribution from Mr. McDonnell was very thought-provoking although I did not agree with all of it. The point was made with regard to TUs. They can help us to tackle the shortfall in some of the technical areas we need to address. Having said that, I made the point recently that we have schools that send too many people to third level and schools that send too few. That is the case. Some of what we have to do is try to rebalance that because there are people being directed to third level who would be better served by apprenticeships. Mr. McDonnell might have a comment on that as well. One of the things we discussed were some of the disincentives for employers in taking on apprentices. Perhaps, instead of block leave, someone might have a one day per week type release.

My final question is for Dr. Smyth, who advanced the idea that students might be in a position to make a contribution later in their lives. Obviously, that has been well ventilated. Dr. Smyth addressed the equity of that from the ESRI's point of view but there is also a question as to the efficacy of it. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions published some research on this. One issue, whether a person can defer it until a later date, is that it provides a disincentive to students from lower income backgrounds.

Where it has been tried, there seem to be significant issues relating to bad debt, that is, debt that is never recouped, and whether, as a model, it can properly wash its face. I invite our guests to respond on those issues and thank them for attending.