Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 5 April 2022

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education and Skills

Future Funding of Higher Education: Discussion (Resumed)

Ms Trish Murphy:

We would like nothing more than to collaborate as much as is humanly possible. A couple of years ago we invited everybody in. What Mr. Smyth said is right. We are inundated with such long waiting lists that we cannot even get our heads up to think about these things. That is what we would naturally do. It has been an extraordinarily difficult three years.

It does not look as if it will ease up soon. This is a weird opportunity to collaborate.

The Senator's point on bullying was very interesting. Another collaboration that has happened relates to a speak-out tool, which is about anonymous reporting and which all higher education institutions have recently operated. A section of that will be about bullying. We are getting in lots of information that we will be able to look at and resource. A lot of that information is about bullying. The Senator is correct. It would be interesting to see where that is coming from. Is it coming from an older cohort that did not benefit from the second level? That will be fascinating when we get it. We are approximately a year away from looking at that.