Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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88. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the checks and balances in place to ensure third level institutions are not using public funds to access legal services to defend themselves against persons who have no access to similar legal services thus placing them at a disadvantage to the publicly funded institution; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [10978/17]

Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael)
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My Department allocates recurrent funding to the Higher Education Authority (HEA) for direct disbursement to the HEA institutions. The HEA allocates this grant to institutions for the purpose of free fees and core grant funding. 

Higher education institutions are autonomous institutions and my Department does not have any function in their day to day operational affairs, including issues of a legal nature, for which the Governing Bodies and the management staff of the institutions are responsible.