Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The position of Irish universities in The Times higher education rankings has remained relatively stable this year, showing that Ireland still has two universities in the top 200; two universities in the top 350 and another in the top 400. Two of these universities, Trinity College Dublin and the National University of Ireland, Galway, NUIG, have improved their relative ranking positions in the past year. While UCD's relative ranking has fallen, its overall point score is higher than last year.

While some higher education systems have invested heavily in elite institutions and adopted a policy of differentiated support for different tiers of institutions, our focus in this country is on advancing performance across an accessible and diverse system of institutions. This policy is paying dividends for Ireland's growing competitiveness and we are now ranked first in the world in the IMD world competitiveness survey for the availability of skilled labour, owing to our impressive ranking of first in the European Union and fourth in the OECD for the higher education attainment rates of our 25 to 34 year olds.

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