Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

As Deputy McConalogue knows, there has been pressure across all sectors of the education system as well as across all Departments, because of the need to cut funding over the past number of years. The Deputy knows well why that was the case. The higher education sector has responded well to the increased student numbers and continues to provide an excellent education for people in Ireland wishing to go on to higher education. Internationally, comparisons are very good. Ireland has a very high reputation in terms of its higher education and a high transfer of young people from post-primary to higher education. I attended an international conference in University College Dublin last night at which the response, generally, from the international guests in relation to the quality of education in Ireland at higher education level was very positive.

I commend the universities and institutes of technology for what they have done with the reduced funding, which was an inevitable consequence of the economic crash and they know that. As I said previously, as soon are we are in recovery, we will start to look at putting some money back into all sectors in education. We got an increase in our budget last year but we are still not in a position to put significant moneys back into the education sector. That is the reality. Mr. Cassells's report will inform where we go in the future.

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