Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I agree with the Deputy's analysis of the situation which is ground in fact. She is entirely right. We were very pleased in the horrific situation that has been Brexit to protect cross-Border education but more needs to be done. I mean that we need to get an understanding as to why students from the North are not choosing to study her and vice versa. One of the arguments that I have put very strongly, and I pushed it at a bilateral meeting with the UK's Secretary of State for Education recently and raised it on a number of occasions with his predecessor, Sir Gavin Williamson, is that we need a piece of research to be done where we ask students from Northern Ireland why they are not choosing to study in the Republic and vice versa. I want to commit at this committee to that piece of work getting under way.

I have had very useful meetings in Belfast and Derry in recent months. I expect proposals to come forward very shortly, probably as soon as this month, in terms of how we can fulfil the two Governments' commitments under New Decade, New Approach. I am thinking particularly but not exclusively in terms of the Magee campus, which is the Derry campus of the University of Ulster, UU. We need to see increased student numbers there. We also need to see collaboration in the north west. The Deputy and I were at the launch of the Atlantic Technological University on Monday. We need to see an opportunity now, for example for the ATU, to plug in and collaborate. I am fully in agreement with the Deputy on this matter. I do think that we have seen significant funding to get that going and the Deputy will have welcomed the €38 million in all-island research funding.

The only difficulty I have with this amendment, and I am not being pedantic, is I genuinely believe and I am advised that we have achieved its objective with the amendment that we have just passed, amendment No. 36. I am not being difficult but we literally, on the basis of Deputy Conway-Walsh's engagement, tabled amendment No. 36, which was to be very clear that when we talk about the HEA promoting co-operation and collaboration we now say it needs to promote that in terms of student places and enrolment. It is simply that I do not believe the provision is necessary twice.