Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue. Higher education institutions are autonomous bodies and are responsible for their own day-to-day management and operational affairs, including the management of academic affairs and how they utilise core funding allocations. As part of budget 2025, the Government agreed a total National Training Fund funding package of €1.485 billion over a six-year period, from 2025 to 2030, for the tertiary sector.

Some €150 million of this has been earmarked to support PhD students and bolster our research infrastructure.

Our support for research infrastructure must enable us to attract and retain researchers of the highest calibre and ensure they have the tools required for their research, with access to modern infrastructure and equipment. There are a number of funding programmes operating in support of this work. The Research Ireland frontiers for the future programme runs in collaboration with Geological Survey Ireland and the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland. It has seen €16.2 million of funding announced to increase research capacity in 15 projects led by technological universities and institutes of technology. The Research Ireland infrastructure programme supports the research community in building and sustaining the infrastructure to accomplish high-quality, high-impact and innovative research. A total of €21 million has been invested in eight research infrastructure projects through this programme in 2024. The higher education research equipment grant, worth €15 million, has been provided to higher education institutions by the Higher Education Authority, HEA. This grant is helping higher education institutions to purchase world-leading new or additional research equipment that will serve the needs of Irish researchers and their enterprise collaborators. The expenditure period for this grant is January 2023 to the end of 2025. Following the allocation of additional capital funding in budget 2025, my Department will examine how best to support the renewal and improvement of research equipment through a programmatic approach.

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