Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

Ireland compares badly with its EU peers in terms of how PhD workers are treated. I listed the kind of stipends at the high end and, obviously, there are many on less than that, but the EU average for a PhD pay is €32,100, and pay in Nordic countries starts at about €50,000 and progresses to €55,000 on a fixed-term four-year contract. Separate from the issue of treatment as workers and the issue of pay that relate to it are a series of other issues that the PhD workers unions are raising, such as ending discrimination against non-EU PhD researchers, clear information about welfare and housing support entitlements for PhD researchers, allocation of affordable HEI-owned student accommodation for postgraduates proportionate to the HEI postgraduate population, an end to precarity in higher education and research and improved access and support for all who wish to pursue postgraduate research and teaching positions, including a dramatic increase in funding for disability services.

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