Mr. Ned Costello:

As Mr. Casey indicated, the core of what universities do must remain intact. What we are discussing is the icing on the cake. Not to trivialise it but the cake is getting smaller and the icing has had to get bigger. One of the key issues facing universities relates to the fact that the restrictions on what can be done to incentivise and reward staff to generate more income are more significant. This is a difficult one with which to deal because everyone knows what we have been obliged to go through to maintain coherence in the public sector and so on. As Mr. Tom Boland mentioned last week, if we want staff to go out and really win significant amounts of international business, for example, or to go to teach in branch campuses abroad, it is reasonable to say that one must be in a position to incentivise them to do so. The same is true in the context of continuing professional development, which is the other area in which a market exists. If one wants staff to do stuff out of hours and provided one has the quality assurance system in place to ensure that this is not done at the expense of their day jobs, which is critical, then the regulators should be open to this. At present, they are not open to it. This is a matter of ongoing debate between ourselves and the Department.