Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail)

I welcome much of what the Minister of State has said. I realise the rankings are based on four pillars of research, including teaching, employability and internationalisation. Clearly, an element of subjectivity is involved. The first paragraph and other parts of the Minister's response could be interpreted as having a level of complacency. We whistle past the graveyard at our peril. Several issues were not touched on in the Minister of State's reply and I draw his attention to them. The issue of financial resources was touched on but what about the quality of management of our universities, the application of the professors and lecturers and the number of lecturing hours they deliver? There should be a greater emphasis on innovation in our colleges. The structures of the colleges, how they are managed, their quality, and how they are administered represent a large part of what we must address and attend to in order to extract best possible results from the scare resources we have to invest.