Charlie McConalogue (Donegal North East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We learned last week that our universities had again slipped down the latest rankings in The Times higher education survey, with Ireland no longer represented among the top 100 institutions worldwide. The drop in position for University College Dublin, from 159 to 187, is particularly dramatic and worrying. Trinity College Dublin is slightly up, from 117 to 110, but has failed yet again to make it into the top 100. Six years ago it was ranked among the top 50 colleges worldwide, while UCD was comfortably inside the top 100. What does the Minister propose to do to address this ongoing decline in ranking? Increasing the student contribution fee every year for 250 years simply will not address the problem. Responding to the latest data for the falling status of Irish universities, Dr. Hugh Brady observed: "Economic factors here are part of the reason, but we must also recognise that investment by universities in other countries is raising the level of competition internationally." The Minister has decided not to publish a recent report on the future of the third level education sector which was compiled by international experts and presented to him by the Higher Education Authority. Will he explain why the report has not been published and why it was commissioned in the first place if it was not to be taken on board?

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