Mr. Jim Miley:

I thank the Chairman and members of the committee for the opportunity to meet with them today on this important issue. We have supplied the committee with a detailed submission so I will keep my comments to the main points. Our universities have clearly shown their value to the country and to society in the response to Covid-19 over the past couple of years. The value of our skills and research was never more relevant to the lives of our people. As we now seek to recover from the pandemic, our universities have an equally important role to play.

High-skilled jobs, centred on talent and innovation, will underpin our future economic, social and cultural development. As a nation, we face a range of challenges in the areas of climate change, housing, healthcare and social services and balanced regional development. The higher education and research system will provide the bedrock of talent and innovation to meet those challenges. The need for a sustainable funding model for the sector, repeatedly emphasised by this committee, must now be delivered if the potential of the sector is to be fully realised.

There is now universal acceptance of the need to increase higher education funding. The long-awaited Government response to the future funding of higher education, which we are told will soon be revealed, must be ambitious and sustainable and reflect the realities of the current challenges facing the sector. Access to higher education has been a particular success story in Ireland, as members are aware, with the proportion of people between 25 and 34 with a third level qualification at around 60%, which is well above the EU average. However, investment in higher education continues to lag behind our competitors, with total public expenditure on tertiary education as a proportion of GDP, or GNI* in the case of Ireland, at 0.6% as opposed to an OECD and EU 22 average of 1%. This puts Ireland joint second last in OECD league tables.

Public investment in research also lags behind that in key competitor countries. The government budget allocation on research and development, GBARD, is 0.92% of total Government expenditure by comparison with the EU average of 1.43%. Again, we are way behind many other small countries, such as Norway, Denmark and Estonia, some of which have a GBARD close to 2%. We need a 50% increase in GBARD just to grow to the average.

On future funding needs, the investment required in our higher education sector was clearly set out in the 2016 Cassells report. It called for additional annual core funding of €600 million by 2021 and €1 billion by 2030, a capital investment programme of €5.5 billion over 15 years and an additional €100 million per year in student-support funding. The report also stressed the need to front-load investment in the first three to five years. The actual increase in State recurrent grant funding in real terms in 2021 amounted to €121 million, considerably less than the €600 million per annum identified by Cassells. The employer levy is generating additional annual investment through the National Training Fund of €190 million over 2017 levels. It is clear, therefore, the additional funding of the sector in recent years has been provided to a significant extent by employers. The State investment to date is only a fraction of that recommended in the Cassells report.

The IUA proposes an investment programme for the sector totalling €418 million in additional recurrent funding and €490 million in capital expenditure. Our proposals, spelt out in detail in our submission to the committee, provide for a number of measures, including a decisive lift in core funding to support our students, address quality-related issues, and widen access and participation. Increased SUSI grant supports must be part of the package. Further measures include sustained investment in talent and skills as the lifeblood of the economy and investment to support lifelong learning, which is critical. Investment in innovation and research to prepare Irish society for the challenges ahead and to enable us to compete internationally is another key component. The continued expansion of access programmes to give a fair chance to disadvantaged students and ensure no student is penalised because of his or postcode at birth is critical. Investment to support universities in harnessing opportunities to develop international partnerships and enhanced mobility for students comprise a further key priority.

Much of the reinvestment in the sector since 2016 has been absorbed by standstill requirements, such as costs for national pay agreements and additional student places, in respect of which there has been tremendous growth over the past two years, in particular. However, standing still is no longer good enough if we are serious about the future talent and innovation needs of the country.

Our research-intensive universities, which we represent, will comprise a key partner in addressing the major societal and economic challenges we will face over the coming decades. We can and will deliver the talent pipeline for a knowledge-intensive and high skills economy and the research and innovation to underpin economic and social development. We can do this only if we are adequately funded on a sustainable basis.