Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Not at all. I would also like to welcome the guests and to wish everybody here the best for the forthcoming term. I was struck by an observation by Professor Orla Feely, during her inaugural lecture as president of University College Dublin, UCD, on Monday evening. She pointed out that the ratio of students to staff in Irish universities is, as she put it: "much, much worse" than it was during the economically bleak 1980s. She said that then, "The student-to-faculty ratio in UCD... was around 13 to one. Now... it is over 20 to one." She described this as "the single biggest threat" to higher education and I know this is a view that is widely shared in the higher education sector.

In the recently published OECD Education at a Glance document, Ireland is second from bottom for the student to faculty ratio in tertiary education, and this is not news to the Government. Last year, to much fanfare the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Harris, published Funding the Future, with a press release claiming that it: "settle[s] the question on higher education funding." It identified an annual shortfall of €307 million for the sector from what is known as core funding. This core funding is the crucial funding the universities need to tackle issues such as staff to student ratios, and it is in addition to the funding needed for future demographic increases, capital funding and research funding. The Government made that promise and it should keep it. In last year's budget, however, only €40 million of additional core funding was provided, which does not even keep up when you factor in pay restoration costs and so on. The Irish Universities Association highlighted that "If the annual rate of funding increase were to continue at the Budget 2023 rate of €40m, it would take 8 years to close the gap." By that stage the €307 million would be a dated figure and that would leave a funding deficit of €1 billion over the eight years if you add it up.

There is a general reluctance among university heads to talk down the quality of our higher education product. However, the green jersey of national pride is giving way to the red flag of warning as TheTimeshigher education rankings show that our teaching and learning scores across higher education are dire. There is anxiety that we have missed the Brexit bounce, with many international students not taking up places, not least because of the chronic shortage of accommodation. There is great anxiety in the sector that if an accelerated funding programme is not apparent in this year's budget, our higher education sector will languish and find it impossible to meaningfully address student to staff ratios and to deliver an adequately resourced education service. One mechanism to deliver the extra funding, in parallel to the estimates, would be to leverage the massive surplus in the National Training Fund and create a skills fund. If this was done right it could release funds to help our universities to address the national skills deficit in areas like healthcare; science, technology, engineering and mathematics, STEM; digitisation; and construction.

We like to tell ourselves that we value education in Ireland but as the saying goes, if you show me your budget, I will show you what you value. We need the Government to keep its promise.