Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Is the Minister saying that he is washing his hands of this problem and that because many of the third level institutions and universities are established under particular statutes, he as Minister is powerless to do much about it? The public are going to be genuinely scandalised when they find out the extent of what has been happening in terms of the money in these accounts, which are essentially off the balance sheets of their parent institution.

The Minister mentioned the question of salaries. Will he tell us if it is true that in some institutions numbers of staff are being paid over and above their public salaries and that in some cases these payments run into tens of thousands? It may be that the institutions have good arguments for this, but the fact is there is no accountability for it. At a time when educational resources are scarce, everyone is pleased to see universities fund-raising. However, they need to be accountable for the fund-raising. The Minister is being quite evasive about this.

See this speech in context