Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)

Will the Minister indicate when he is likely to propose to Government the strategic group and the chairperson of this important body? Will the Minister further outline his strategy in terms of the establishment of this higher level group? As I understand it, he has asked as one of the first functions to bring forward a report on the potential funding arrangement for third level and higher education in this country.

Does the Minister agree that it would be much more sensible to have the vision and the issue of funding dealt with at the same time? If the Minister is proposing to consider funding first, without looking at the broader remit of vision for higher education — which I referred to two weeks ago in a speech at my own party conference — it will effectively put the cart before the horse. We need both issues to be addressed at the same time rather than rushing in to a funding solution — or not as the case may be — without looking at the wider issues of quality, participation and where exactly we want higher education to be in 20 years.

See this speech in context