Mr. Tom Boland:

Neither the HEA nor the Department wants to prevaricate on this issue of likely costs, but it is complex. Deputy McConalogue is trying to take us ahead of where we are. As an indicator, the recent ESRI report says that based on our models, we estimate total enrolments in 2020 and 2030 will be 168,000 and 195,000, respectively. These figures imply an increase in nominal recurrent funding to €1.4 billion in 2020 and €1.63 billion in 2030.

Those are some figures. However, importantly one of the key objectives of the sustainability work we are doing and which we will complete in a few months is the element of that additional funding can be found from improved productivity with existing resources. We are seeking to analyse the demand for higher education, analyse the current financing, review the resource allocation models, identify where, if any, additional resources are needed and then make some policy proposals to the Minister. The work is very much in progress. Those figures can be taken as being indicative but no more than that at this stage.

I appreciate the Deputy's point on the international panel report. It is not true to say the Minister would not allow it to be published. To be totally honest, as I must be with the committee, we had intended to publish the report three or four weeks earlier than it was published. The Department asked us to pause that publication in order to allow for a clear understanding of where national policy was on some of the issues addressed in the report. A crucial policy issue was that the international panel strongly supported the objective of the Hunt report in terms of the binary system and the need to retain the missions of both sectors of the binary system. It took the view that another way to do that would be to create what were described as comprehensive regional universities. Ultimately that is not consistent with the Hunt report and the Minister took the view that it was not national policy and therefore was not going to be pursued. The issues only arose in that particular context - to do with specific configurations. There was no sense of the Minister not allowing the publication of the report. It was a question of getting the process right so that it did not create unnecessary instability in the system, for want of a better word.

I ask Mr. Costello to comment on the other issues.