Mr. Phillip Crosby:

Further to Ms Doyle's point on savings, recurrent funding for institutes supported through the HEA decreased from €1.318 billion in 2009 to €1.118 billion in 2012, representing savings of €200 million, or 15%. These savings have emerged from the budgetary situation in which we find ourselves but they are supported by activity on both pay and non-pay aspects of the industrial relations front in the institutions concerned. In the period covered by the Croke Park agreement, the student-staff ratio in the higher education sector increased by 18%, which represents a significant productivity gain. A number of measures in the Croke Park agreement and other sectoral agreements in the higher education sector pursuant to the agreement supported these savings. One such measure was the provision of an additional hour of working time by academic staff in the universities, which has delivered in the order of 100,000 additional hours annually. Increased flexibility in the deliver of working hours in the institutes of technology in the 2011-12 academic year put an additional 150,000 lecturing hours into the institutes. This equates to the negotiation and implementation of approximately 250,000 additional lecturing hours between the two sectors under the Croke Park agreement.

Union co-operation has been required for introducing ongoing change in other areas. Significant savings have been made on the non-pay side. Ms Doyle referred to shared services but the main developments up to now have been in shared procurement, with initiatives such as the Shannon consortium involving multiple institutions producing significant savings in energy, laboratory gases and supplies, advertising, purchasing of journals and literature, office equipment and waste management.

I will be slightly more circumspect in regard to planned savings but we continue to face a difficult budgetary position and significant savings will be sought from the unions across the public sector generally. A process of engagement between Government and the unions will get under way today and we will see where that process goes on coming weeks.