Mairéad Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein)
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It has been fascinating to read Mr. Geary's opening statement and to hear what he had to say and the discussion we have had today, which has given me a much deeper understanding.

Regarding the movement to third level education, obviously universities have considerable autonomy. Is there a coherent approach among the universities or do some universities have greater focus? I went to NUIG, now called University of Galway, which has several great programmes. I would be interested initially in that.

Prior to this meeting, I did some research on pay. In the earlier session we heard about people moving on from third level education. One of the witnesses told us that visually impaired and blind graduates are treated the same as those with no qualifications. What research has been done on deaf students coming out of university? The only study that I could find was from 2006. The majority of participants and the survey said they were in manual work and expected no promotion. Almost 70% of them earned less than €460 a week or just €22,000 a year. It pointed out that educational attainment was one of the reasons for this.