Sean Barrett (Independent)

With regard to the metro north question raised by my friend, Senator O'Brien, there have always been serious difficulties with the lack of economic appraisal of that project. I did a "Prime Time" programme with Miriam O'Callaghan and the former Minister, Eamon Ryan, and we found most of the documents in the economic appraisal were Tippexed out. It is regrettable that the engineers went ahead with the project before it was properly appraised.

I refer to the announcement of the ranking of universities worldwide earlier, which shows that Irish universities are falling. This does not refer to either a decline in the quality of graduates or in the quality of research papers produced. The measure chosen to indicate a decline in quality was the reduction in the number of staff. That is called productivity in most other sectors. I do not know why it should be a problem for The Times Higher Education World University Rankings Supplement 2011-12. The reduction in staff had to be undertaken because of the difficulties with the national finances.

I am worried because three analyses have been conducted on third level funding and staffing by the Comptroller and Auditor General, an bord snip nua and Dr. Colin Hunt and his group. The Hunt report was spectacular because of the absence of people on the group who had been in a lecture hall or had done any teaching in recent years. It is favoured, therefore, by the bureaucrats within the Department. The other reports show that the share of the education budget spent on paying lecturers has reduced to 40%. An army of bureaucrats has been created. They come to the House and they appeared before the Joint Committee on Jobs, Social Protection and Education recently. According to the The Irish Times rich list of November last, more than 100 officials earn €112,610 per annum. One cannot that earn that as a lecturer. Within the current constraints, we need to divert money back into the classroom and lecture halls and away from this growing army of bureaucrats. That includes, if necessary, the abolition of the Higher Education Authority and the higher education section of the Department. There are only seven universities and, therefore, it should not take that long for somebody to write seven cheques and put the money into education. The ranking of universities will then improve.