Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 30 November 2022

Select Committee on Education and Skills

Estimates for Public Services 2022
Vote 26 - Education (Supplementary)
Vote 45 - Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (Supplementary)

Photo of Niall CollinsNiall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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On funding, we have published the Funding the Future framework document on funding for further and higher education, which follows on from the Cassells report. It identified a funding deficit of €307 million. We built €40 million into our base as a first step to close that gap. We have lots of competing demands. We spoke about the pension shortfall, which is a reality that has to be lived up to. Pensioners have to be paid their pensions. There are demands arising from the recent pay agreement, Building Momentum, and there is cost arising from that. We have been particularly conscious to try and help student cohorts. As for the future of funding, you could gobble up all the extra and additional resources on one item, such as the gap identified by the Cassells report, but you have to have your colleges and higher education institutions populated by students who are not always concerned about their ability to finance themselves going there so we have had to take measures on a one-off basis.

There will be a reduction of €500 to the student registration charge for next year. Students who avail of the SUSI grant do not have to pay that charge at all. With the broadening of the parameters of the SUSI grant, we envisage more students meeting the criteria to avail of it. I cannot give the committee anything more definitive in respect of recurring payments. The Deputy is right that many of the measures are one-offs to address the current cost-of-living crisis. None of us can predict how long the crisis will last. It has always been the position of the Government that these are to be one-off measures and that if we have to, we will revisit the situation.

The Deputy spoke about the cost of running campuses, big estates and many buildings. The Supplementary Estimate includes €10 million for energy bills. What was the Deputy's other question?