Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Minister is very welcome and I thank her for her very comprehensive response. This area is very important. When I was lord mayor of Cork I had the privilege of visiting Shanghai in China at the request of University College Cork, which wanted to establish a connection with Fudan University and Shanghai University. This brought home to me the need to grow and develop our universities and third level education. What frightened me was the fact that one city had more than 20 universities and more than 320,000 young people in third level education. Here, we are talking about targets of approximately 228,000 in third level education by 2028. The scale of the world market brings home the importance of ensuring we can produce people with qualifications and skills compete with the world. It is so easy for people to travel. They can be in the US one day, the UK the next day and Ireland the day after. Over the past ten to 15 years we have moved beyond the European market into the world market in relation to competencies and skills. Therefore, we must be able to produce the best of people from our second and third level education systems.

I welcome Senator Barrett's work on this, which creates a debate. It is extremely important we examine the funding of universities and the team work between universities and other third level institutions in connection with research and industry. During my visit to Shanghai, I was struck by the direct connection between third level institutions, research centres and industry, which had been clearly planned out. They were located side by side. Some 12 months later, I returned to China, where they were building a whole new city for 650,000 people. The plans were locating the educational institutions near the research centres and industrial areas. There is long-term planning, not just short-term planning.

The Minister has set out clear targets for the university sector and she is working with third level institutions to create greater efficiencies and improve the quality and standard of what we are producing. We need to examine value for money and see what we can do to ensure Ireland also benefits. I have been raising this issue for some time. I refer in particular to medical education in our universities, on which we spend approximately €90 million per year. I am not sure we are getting value back in our economy and hospital system. I am not saying it is a failure of the universities or students. The Department of Health and the HSE need to seriously examine it. I have been extremely critical of the current structure. In 2012, I did a study which found that over 60% of those who were going to graduate in that year had already decided to leave the country within 12 months of qualifying. While it is great to improve universities, we must also improve what we have to offer after graduation and how it is structured. I am a long time critic of the practice of offering six-month contracts to medical graduates with no clear career path. When addressing education we also need to consider the jobs available to people when they finish their studies. It is important that we realise we are competing in an international market and adjust accordingly.

Our birth rate increased from 50,000 in 2000 to more than 75,000 in 2010. From 2017 and 2018 onwards there will be huge demand for places in third level institutions.

It is important that we plan and ensure we can accommodate the people who want to go on to third level education and that there are an adequate number of places for them. That is one area we need to keep in mind.

We also need to consider the issue of research and development and have closer co-operation between our universities and industry. The Tyndall Institute is doing wonderful work in Cork with some very dedicated and committed people involved. There are huge benefits to having that research centre in Cork.

We talked about the funding under Horizon 2020. We need to tap into that funding and get our fair share to ensure the people who want to do research are able to work here in Ireland. A problem with research and development - it is not just an Irish problem but a European problem - is that approximately 75% of people who want to get involved in research from outside the EU end up going to the United States rather than coming to Europe. That is something we need to keep in mind. As well as retaining our own students we need to ensure we get people in from abroad who carry out that research and development in order to create jobs in this country.

I welcome the debate on the matter. We have a lot of work to do with our third level institutions. We need to ensure we are getting value for money and have the proper structures to get the best possible results for people going through those institutions.