James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There was a pay agreement entered into between Government and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions last year and in the Revised Estimates, an amount of €24.9 million was provided in the base for the higher education sector in anticipation of that pay deal being agreed. That is a slightly separate track. I appreciate there are competing priorities, as always.

That highlights the difficulty of any report, be it Cassells or Funding the Future, in anticipating and planning for higher education growth and for core funding to increase because there are always other competing demands and there are emerging issues such as pay disputes and pay awards that can follow. There is then a question of whether that comes from core funding, whether it is additional funding or supplementary funding or how do we make that jigsaw complete. That is part of the ongoing challenge.

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