Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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The spend per student can throw one sometimes. An issue I raised with regard to the National University of Ireland, Maynooth is the fact that very often the precarious nature of junior or part-time lecturers might skew the spend. When we look at that, we must look at the reason for it. That was quite a sizeable issue. Primary school teachers have far more rights than people at entry level in universities. It is a constant source of criticism. Sometimes there is an hour of research and an hour of lecturing. It does not improve the output in terms of the quality of what is happening in some of our universities. Some of it relates to the precarious nature of the employment. If we are talking to the HEA, we must include this issue when it comes to drilling down and understanding what is happening.