Mairéad Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein)
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Do we have another member online? No. Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire Stáit as teacht os comhair an choiste seo. The Minister of State is very welcome to the committee today. I am new to this committee and I must say that I think it is disappointing that the Minister, Deputy Harris, is not here, in front of the committee. I have to be honest about that. It is not the way I would usually have dealt with it in other committees. It is very disappointing. It is welcome that the Minister of State is here and I appreciate his engagement, but really and truly, the senior Minister should be in attendance for this kind of thing when we are talking about these amounts of money. I wanted to say that at the outset.

My first question relates to the new net allocation of €107 million, and how it relates to subhead 10. On pages 2 and 3 of the Department briefing document, it is stated that the cost of adjustments to university pensions and pay-related measures is half a million euro. That would be less than 0.5% of the new allocation. When I look at the breakdown of the subheads, the document notes that it will cost €61 million in additional funds to address pension shortfalls in the sector, and that will be almost 60% of the new allocation. To put that figure into context, it is almost the amount the Government closed the core funding gap by this year. I ask the Minister of State to explain that figure. Which figure is correct?