Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I want to raise the issue of the decline in the international rankings of Irish universities as published today. Trinity College Dublin dropped out of the top 100 while University College Dublin out of the top 200. There has been a dramatic decline during this recession in the State funding of universities with an increase in fees and the use of some private incomes.

The staff to student ratio has deteriorated. It is over 18 compared with 11 in the United Kingdom. If the Irish universities were ranked by funding, none would get remotely near the top 200. We must invite the Minister for Education and Skills, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, in here to discuss the implications of this. To have 20% more students and to lose 2,500 staff means fewer courses are on offer and the quality of the graduates will suffer.

The rankings are seriously defective in that they underestimate areas where Ireland has been successful in the past in the humanities, the social sciences and so on but they have an international impact. There is a funding crisis. There is an increase in Government attempts to control universities, which is a mistake. There were financial problems which should not have been allowed to occur. Our briefing note on higher education prepared by the Oireachtas Library and Research Service states: “Quality is something which has become ‘increasingly government-driven rather than institution-led’ . . .”. That is a mistake. It has involved layers of bureaucracy. We need people in the classroom. People of all senior ranks in universities should get back to lecturing. There are problems like that. There were some expense account scandals that the Comptroller and Auditor General had to investigate in Waterford and elsewhere. We need more resources for the classroom. The numbers are based on 2012 and will get worse before they get better. This could be a point of decline in Irish education. Nobody wants to see that. I thank the Cathaoirleach for the extra time.