Mr. Tom Boland:

I hope I can make a coherent contribution to what has been a discussion of a wide-ranging mix of issues. Underlying a number of the questions asked and the points raised was the issue of the sustainability of the system. It arose in comments about alumni and in the context of additional student numbers and likely costs. We now have firm figures for and evidence of the likely demand for higher education places, both from students and also, importantly, employers. There is a clear message coming from the ESRI report which was compiled at the behest of the HEA, that we need every graduate we can get hold of to ensure future demographic growth.

Sometimes, when people talk about sustainability, the default position - it has been my own in the past - is: how do we get more money into the system? This morning I was looking at a website on which it was indicated that Pearsons, an international consultancy group, had published an assessment of the best education systems in the world. Ireland ranks very well in 11th place. The assessment report states:

Throwing money at education by itself rarely produces results. The individual changes to education systems, however sensible, rarely do much on their own. Education requires long-term, coherent and focused system-wide attention to achieve improvement.

That is what the national strategy is about. The strategy and the restructuring of the higher education sector are intimately connected with the sustainability of the sector. There is a temptation for agencies, even the HEA, to make a crude calculation - for example, X number of extra students by Y amount per student equals so many hundred million euro - but it does not really work. As Ms Doyle said, we will be working with the Department in the coming months to try to develop a more sophisticated strategy to ensure the sustainability of the higher education sector. It will deal with issues such as alumni and the use of technology in the sector. Sligo Institute of Technology has been strong in this area.

Underpinning all of this, we need a number of ways by which to reimagine how a higher education is to be provided. The current model, not just in Ireland but also internationally, is increasingly becoming unsustainable. The length of the academic year was mentioned, but it is not just that issue; there is also the way in which the academic programme is structured. There is a big range of issues, long before we come to the question of how much extra the system needs.

The international experts' report was mentioned. I will try to put the issue in context. Creating a coherent system of higher education institutions, interlocking in a co-ordinated way, has never been tried in Ireland and only rarely been tried successfully internationally. In doing this work, therefore, the HEA wanted to receive the best possible advice from as many quarters as possible. We adopted a position of working from bottom-up and top-down in seeking inputs into the process. In the bottom-up approach institutions were asked, with reference to the Hunt report, where they saw their future. In the top-down approach the aim was to engage with some international experts, using the strategy as set out in the Hunt report, and ask how we might reconfigure the sector in the optimal way to create a co-ordinated system. That is exactly what the international panel has done and the input its report will have into the process.

It is a mischaracterisation of the Minister's position to say he pooh-poohed the report. In fairness, last Thursday he endorsed much of its contents. He said mergers of universities were not a policy objective; they have been tried in the past and did not work. From a national policy point of view, that issue is not on the agenda. That is a perfectly reasonable position for the Minister to take. In so far as it deals with specific configurations, the report covers relatively few pages. It also deals with aspects that will be of enormous benefit to us in developing a co-ordinated system. It talks about configuration parameters, general principles and examines international trends in the creation of higher education systems. It also looks at the qualities a co-ordinated higher education system should have. All of this is extremely valuable background material for us in our discussions with the institutions and for the institutions in seeing where they are placed on the landscape.

While specific institutional proposals made by the panel, as being illustrative of an optimal system, are not being considered, 75% of the report is germane to our activities.

Deputy Colreavy pointed out centralisation is not always a good development. He is correct and, in discussions about higher level education, it is often said scale is always better. It is not always better. I accept St. Angela's College is a fine college. The Minister's intention through the teacher education review was to improve the quality of the teacher education system. It set out to see how we can create the best possible teachers. Internationally, it is agreed stand-alone teacher education facilities are not a good idea. Instead, teachers need to be educated in a broad and rich research-informed environment. In an Irish context, that would be in the universities. Accordingly, the inevitable conclusion for an institution such as St. Angela's is that its teacher-education provision should be relocated to Galway university. While I am in no position to make any commitments today, we will meet with St. Angela's, as we will with all of the institutions in question, and listen to their issues and if they can point to a better way of doing things.