Mr. Martin Marjoram:

I agree with everything that has been said. I might come in on the point made by the representative of the Irish Research Staff Association. It related to a different question, but the Teachers Union of Ireland has negotiation rights on behalf of researchers in the institutes of technology and the technological universities. It has been a very difficult and arduous path to try to do what we want to do, namely, to improve and standardise the terms and conditions. What we want are terms and conditions that are directly comparable to those of lecturing staff, that is, the same kinds of contracts, the same level of permanency, the same pension rights and rights to leave and so on. It has not been easy and, after many years, we have not made the progress we wanted. There are a plethora of contracts, some of which do not have a pay scale but rather a single point where people stay for however long they remain in employment. Other than that, there are those who have no pension arrangements made for them whatsoever. Bizarrely, some of the funding that comes in comes from the funding body with 20% added onto the salary portion for a pension contribution, and that has been sent back in some cases, although we really do not understand why there is such a bureaucratic difficulty in doing anything with that money on the part of the host institution. We are trying to progress these issues, and while it is not easy to do, our intention is to continue with our negotiations and to try to improve the terms and conditions of researchers to a level comparable with those of lecturing staff.

In technological universities, in particular, we want to see an expansion of research capacity, but not a hived-off or separated research activity that is disparate from lecturing. We think research and lecturing go together, and that is one reason it is a good idea to have comparable terms and conditions in order that there can be interchange and there can be a time in an academic's life when there is a greater focus on one than the other. The closer together the contracts are, the easier that is to do.

There has been some improvement for the sector. The review of the model in 2019 applied €5 million in funding directly to the sector for the first time. That was a small sum - the review had recommended 5% as opposed to the €5 million figure, and it will need to be ramped up to 5%, which would be about four times as much - but it has certainly helped with multiannual planning for research and the building of capacity. That has been positive but it needs to be built on to a far greater extent.

There was a question about the fragmentation of employment. To build on what Mr. Jones talked about, TUI was a little ahead of IFUT in gaining the benefits of what he mentioned and of the Cush report. We met Michael Cush in numerous engagements to try to replicate progress we have made for our teaching grades with regard to far better terms relating to achieving permanency after only two years, as opposed to what is laid out in employment law, where four years has to have passed. One important aspect of it relates to the augmentation of contracts after a single year of holding additional hours. I think that was the point that was being made. We should not have people in the system who are not turned to for additional hours that become available. We are adamant that is what should happen. We have an agreement and a circular letter that states that should happen, but there remain implementation difficulties and it is something we are concerned about. The Cush process, like many of these trade union processes, arose out of industrial action and, frankly, out of saying enough is enough. Nevertheless, we got something positive and it has improved matters, and we are still working to try to make it as effective as possible by following precisely what was laid down in the circular and the agreement.