Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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17. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills his views on the recent decline experienced by Irish universities in international rankings; his plans to improve and enhance Irish third-level institutions; and his further plans to deal with the funding issues in the third-level sector. [28473/16]

Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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I am glad the Taoiseach is here to hear this question because the issue of third-level funding that I raise in this question is a key priority. People are saying it is a Fianna Fáil priority but it is a national priority that we have adequately-funded third-level colleges. I would like the Minister for Education and Skills to set out how he proposes to react to what has been happening lately and to the decline in our institutions' rankings.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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While there has been a decline in the rankings of some Irish institutions, Ireland performs ahead of most European countries relative to its population size and has the highest level of tertiary attainment rate for 30 to 34 year olds in Europe.

We have to be cautious about how we interpret the results of these commercial global rankings. It is clear that performance in rankings are often highly reliant on surveys of opinion and of citations in journals which do not adequately capture the full range of activities taking place in our third level institutions. Nonetheless, they are widely read and can be influential.

I want a strong higher education system that serves the needs of all students, enterprise and other stakeholders through high-quality teaching and learning, upskilling and reskilling, research and innovation, as well as supporting the most disadvantaged to participate in higher education as part of the overall goal of delivering the best education and training system in Europe by 2026. It is important that we choose the goals and objectives and then benchmark ourselves against best international practice. The first systems performance report prepared by the Higher Education Authority, HEA, and published in 2014 shows that the higher education system in Ireland is performing well against a range of international benchmarks.

I have acknowledged that funding is a key concern. The report of the expert group on future funding for higher education clearly outlines the funding challenges and offers a number of approaches and recommendations for consideration for the medium term. Higher education funding in the short term is also the focus of discussion as part of budget 2017. As committed to in the programme for Government, I referred the report to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Education and Skills as part of the process for formulating a plan for the future. This will ensure that all views can be heard.

We will require a broad consensus to enable us to move forward with a realistic and achievable strategy for funding the system into the future. I hope to work with the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Education and Skills as it analyses all of the options put forward by the expert group and allows the voices of all stakeholders and those on all sides of the debate to be heard.

In addition, the Department is working with the HEA on a revised system performance framework for higher education institutions which will establish clear goals for the system for the next five years across priority areas such as access, research and developing our pipeline of human capital.

Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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The Minister is in complete and utter denial about the crisis facing our third-level sector. That is obvious from his reply but it is also obvious in the action plan on education that he published where there are two lines devoted to the crisis in third-level funding and the Cassells report. When that plan was published, one of the first things I looked for was what it said about third level. I had to keep reading in order to discover if I was missing something. It is not there and that demonstrates the Department’s lack of commitment. The Minister talks about having the best education system in the world and about international standards but he dismisses the rankings. I agree that rankings are not perfect but the more the Minister starves the system of funding, the higher the pupil-teacher ratio will become, the further the rankings will drop and the less attractive universities will be to foreign non-EU students who provide huge funding by paying higher fees. This is a vicious circle which has to stop in the forthcoming budget.

We will discuss the Cassells report. Even if he wanted to, the Minister could not implement the report overnight but he can - on the night of the budget - implement a change in direction to ensure that the sector and the system are adequately funded. He says the system is performing well and that it is doing so against incredible odds. However, it is not performing well in the rankings, which, imperfect though they might be, do mean something.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy chooses to interpret things the way he does. If he reads the action plan for education he will see that we place a high priority on meeting the skill needs of the future, not only in universities but also in respect of matters such as apprenticeships and traineeships. We place a high priority on increasing by 30% the number of young people from disadvantaged areas that get through to higher education. We recognise higher education is absolutely pivotal to our long-term success as a nation.

In approaching the important issue of funding, it must be recognised that there is a short-term need and a long-term need. We must look to this budget to find resources to meet the short-term need. We have to recognise that we are working against a background where, in total, there is approximately €600 million for use in respect of housing, health, homelessness and all of the other issues Government must address. There is also the long and medium-term strategy and the Deputy seems to be dismissing the need to address those medium-term issues thrown up by a county man of his, Peter Cassells. Those are important issues and if the Deputy and his party firmly believe that proper long-term funding is required for higher education, then they must come forward with proposals within the context of the Cassells report as to how we will make that approach work.

Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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The content of the Cassells report will not be discussed in this Chamber but, rather, in the committee rooms. That process will take some time. I compliment Mr. Cassells and his committee on the work they did. When he spoke to the Fianna Fáil Party he advised us to take our time with this and he was right. We cannot, however, take our time in recognising the immediate funding crisis. I urge the Minister to do everything that can be done in the budget to change that direction. We know that the problems will not be solved overnight but we need to signal that Government no longer works only in the short term to get votes but plans for the future. The Minister and I have had our education. If we invest money in third-level education, there will be no personal benefit for many people but it will have benefits in the future and for the children growing up now and for the country. It will also send a signal that we are going to do things properly by looking to the future and that we are not interested in short-term political gain but, rather, in the medium and long-term gain to which the Minister refers.

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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It is important to recognise some of the successes of our third-level system. We have the highest degree of third-level participation in Europe and the highest number of graduates in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics, STEM, subjects which are key to technological progress. We rank as one of the best countries in converting research in which we invest in our universities into genuine innovation that can transform enterprise or public services. We have real successes but we have a funding problem. We do not have a sustainable funding model for the third-level sector and we need to design that.

I welcome the Deputy’s indication that his party has not yet made a decision and is going to take its time before doing so. Some of the public commentary suggested that his party had taken a decision ahead of the committee meeting, which would have been disappointing. I agree that we need short and long-term strategies. The Deputy has to be realistic that the short-term strategy will be constrained, as Peter Cassells recognised, in a competition with many other deserving needs. That is the situation in which we find ourselves, like it or not. I seek to build both a short and a long-term strategy in co-operation with parties across the House.