Dáil debates

Thursday, 14 January 2021

Covid-19 (Higher Education): Statements

 

5:20 pm

Photo of Matt ShanahanMatt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I gather that higher education cost the State approximately €2 billion last year. To quote the late American Senator, Everett Dirksen: "A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money". At a cool €2 billion, the sector costs real money and requires real and meaningful oversight and a thoughtful strategy. I appreciate that appointing a Minister for the sector is a form of recognition that something must be done about higher education.

As regards funding, it is hard to figure out where the €2 billion goes. The raw data or the dashboard that shows the flow of the money into the seven universities, whatever number of institutes of technology and technological universities there are and the various colleges does not exist. With all the agencies that fund higher education and their various funding schemes, taxpayers cannot see where the money is going. The annual accounts are usually late. The HEA appears to be actively trying to hide how much the system costs.

With respect to accountability, attempts to make the sector more accountable appear to be an absolute mess. The previous Government backed away from its legislative attempts to make universities more accountable and to give us oversight powers. The cheek of the sector to fund an elaborate marketing campaign, Save Our Spark, which got lavish and unquestioning coverage for its funding crisis, telling everyone who would listen that the sector was a financial time bomb. Then it came, cap in hand, to the Government for further support. The only time bomb I can see is the runaway expenditure in the university sector, with no effective oversight. I see the massive unchecked borrowing of our universities. The Department hardly knows the full scale of the liabilities in the supposedly independent university sector. It appears that the dozy professors have borrowings of close to €1 billion sitting on their balance sheets and the taxpayers, despite promises, are on the hook for it. Much of that runaway borrowing was for exotic property deals and student apartments, with universities often mixing it up with commercial developers.

I would love to know the financial arrangements of UCD's operation in China. Are lecturers getting top-up salaries for doing their jobs? Who owns the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, RCSI? It is another pertinent question. The Irish Management Institute, IMI, deal carried out by UCC, aside from the context of Brexit, appears fishy. How much do some of the buildings cost per square metre? They look like they would make Nicolae Ceausescu blush. Presumably, all of this is above board and there is nothing to see here, but much of this activity falls outside the Comptroller and Auditor General's responsibilities. There is no public reporting and, to be honest, the annual reports gloss over the details of this stuff. I see inappropriate expenditure by our universities on palatial housing for their presidents and lavish entertainment. There are rumours of wine cellars, butlers, chefs and waiting staff. I also see huge sums spent without adhering to national and EU rules on procurement, governance failures, deficits, accounting issues, legal bills and vast cost overruns on capital projects. Accountability for funding in the sector is a myth. There is no economic evaluation or value-for-money analysis. I wonder sometimes if there is even a strategy.

We had the Hunt report in 2011 and the Cassells report in 2016, and we are awaiting the work of the European Commission. Meanwhile, the money going to the sector is rising apace. The sector appears to be adrift without a plan. That situation probably suits some, particularly our unchecked, bloated and bloviating universities. We must have high-quality data on expenditure from the Minister's Department, and we need good comparison work on the performance of the funded institutions. We must have an economic evaluation of the funding and the Government must produce a credible vision for this sector as it gobbles up €2 billion per year, largely unchecked and not bothered by oversight.

I have two questions for the Minister. In respect of the south-east region, the undergraduate platform costs approximately €125 million per year. With that, the region suffers a significant brain drain. Assuming we move to a south-east university model, the spend should be €223 million, an increase of almost €100 million per annum. Will he guarantee this additional €100 million per annum spend will be delivered to the south-east university to deliver educational equality for the region? Second, to deliver such educational equality to the south-east, what plans of governance oversight is he considering to regulate the university sector properly?

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