Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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64. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills further to Parliamentary Question No. 167 of 5 July 2016, the reason the borrowings of NUIG and Maynooth University are classified as outside general government for EUROSTAT purposes in view of the fact that NUIG and Maynooth University each receive 71% of their income from the State and WIT receives 73% of its income from the State. [37920/16]

Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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65. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the reason Waterford Institute of Technology was instructed by the HEA to cease borrowing in 2012 due to the fact its borrowings are classified as within general government, despite having a history of borrowing independently from 1992 to 2012. [37921/16]

Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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68. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the reason his Department has not given effect to the borrowing framework contained in the Institutes of Technology Act 2006. [37924/16]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 63 to 65, inclusive, and 68 together.

The Universities Act, 1997 contains a provision for all of the Universities to borrow within a framework agreed with the Higher Education Authority. This framework, which was agreed with the Department of Education and Skills and the now Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, has been in operation for many years. A similar provision to allow Institutes of Technology to borrow is contained in the Institutes of Technology Act, 2006, however this provision has not been commenced.

Universities are classified as outside General Government Balance for Eurostat purposes, while Institutes of Technology are classified as within. This arises primarily from the difference in funding sources in the two sectors, with the university sector raising a greater proportion of income from non-State sources.

My Department is continuing to discuss with the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform the possibility of agreeing a borrowing framework as part of broader deliberations arising from the report of the Expert Group on Future Funding for Higher Education.

The position in relation to Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT) is that while some campus companies associated with WIT undertook borrowing up to 2012, that no longer remains the position since the formal incorporation of those campus companies into WIT.