Mr. Jim Miley:

I apologise. We have grown the number of international students. As I indicated in my opening comments, it is now worth close to €400 million per year in net export earnings. There is much economic value and it has been a major buffer for universities and other third level institutions in catering for the fall in income elsewhere. There is, however, a potential risk. There is massive investment in Asia in third level systems, including in China, Indonesia and countries in that part of the world. Some of the universities there are moving into the top 100 in the world. Even a decade ago, that would have been unheard of. Taking the medium term view, it is reasonable to assume the flow of international students to this part of the world will certainly plateau and could decrease.

However, there is a substantial risk attached to relying on that funding.

Second, we know an extra 40,000 of our students will be at the doors of the system by 2030 compared with the 2015 baseline. If we do not have sufficient funding in place, we will be unable to cater for them. Universities do not want to be in the position where they must take in international students to balance the books to the detriment of Irish students, which is another risk. The year 2030 is more than a decade away but the steps of that stairs have begun and that is a real and live risk in the coming years.