Carol Nolan (Offaly, Sinn Fein)
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165. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills the budgetary allocation and the number of guidance posts for further and higher education over each of the past ten years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [18541/17]

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 as a block grant to institutions to cover teaching, research and supporting activities. The internal allocation of this grant is a matter for each institution. Higher education institutions are autonomous institutions and my Department does not have any function in their day to day operational affairs, including the appointment of staff and allocation of budgets for individual departments or units.

Supplementary information has been requested from the HEA in relation to the number of guidance posts and budgetary allocation and my officials will revert to the Deputy directly as soon as this information is made available to them.