Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for coming in to address this issue. We are coming up to the seventh anniversary of the publication of the Cassells report, which outlined the crisis facing higher education funding at that time. A number of options were presented in that report. Three options were presented very clearly to the Government, namely, that there be a dramatic increase in public funding, that the fee model be retained, or that we look at the model of income-contingent loans. It is fair to say the Government continued to kick the can down the road, referring the report to an Oireachtas committee and then to the European Commission for its observations. Commitments were given that the European Commission report would be published by now but that has not happened. The Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Harris, committed that 2021 would be the year higher education funding would finally be resolved. Clearly, that has not happened. This Government realises the potential of higher education. That is why a new Department was created. It must be acknowledged that some additional funding, on both the capital and current side, has been put into higher education. However, these are sticking plaster solutions. The system is in crisis. Time and again we have heard from the universities and the new technological universities - the former institutes of technology - about the problems they are facing and the impact these things can have on the quality of teaching and research and, in particular, support services for students. There has been a continuous and rapid expansion in higher education over the last number of years. That is the right thing to do because this country's future will be based on talent and investing in talent. We are short-changing the higher education system because we are failing to address the funding issue.

I note with concern that the Minister has been talking about cutting student fees. In an ideal world we would all like student fees to be cut, but my worry is that the commensurate amount of money that will be necessary as a result of the cut to student fees will not be made available to the higher education institutions. Whenever any of the representative groups come before the Joint Committee on Education, Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, I ask them where priority funding should be invested. They talk about investment in core funding and the SUSI grant scheme, as well as radical reform of the SUSI grant scheme.

We cannot wait any longer. This can has been continually kicked down the road. This country's reputation is now at stake. In fact, Tony Donohoe of IBEC told the education committee that we have already gone beyond the tipping point. I do not necessarily expect the report from the European Commission on the recommendations of the Cassells report to tell us much more than we already know. We know higher education is in a state of crisis. We know there has been an expectation on the institutions to continue to do more without the necessary additional resources. Respectfully, I am worried the Government does not appreciate the full scale of the crisis. I ask for clear dates for the publication of the European Commission's report and an answer with regard to the Government's strategy for the future funding of higher education.