Norma Foley (Kerry, Fianna Fail)
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The Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science has advised that it allocates grant funding to public higher education institutions under the authority of the Higher Education Authority (HEA) from the Exchequer and the National Training Fund (NTF) in respect of their current expenditure. In 2024 the allocation, as per the 2024 Revised Estimates, is €1,529,035,000 to be provided from (i) Subhead B4 (€1,380,683,000) and (ii) NTF Enterprise Focused Higher Education (€148,352,000).

The Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science allocates this recurrent grant funding to the Higher Education Authority (HEA) for direct disbursement to HEA funded institutions. The recurrent funding made available by Government is intended to contribute towards pay and non-pay costs of the Higher Education Institutions within their overall operating budget. Funding is not provided on a budget line item basis. In this regard the provision of funding on a per student basis to institutions or to a particular faculty within an institution, such as a teacher training faculty, does not apply.

The HEA provides block grant funding to the higher education sector through the Recurrent Grant Allocation Model (RGAM), this model has been developed to appropriately disburse the available funding but is not intended to incentivise one activity over another. The grant is to the institution as a block grant towards teaching, research and related costs, and the internal disbursement across departments or faculties is a matter for each institution.

Marino Institute of Education (MIE) is not currently under the remit of the HEA. It is the only State-funded provider of initial teacher education that continues to receive block funding directly from my Department via Capitation Grants. Grants in lieu of tuition fees in respect of approved numbers are paid on the following courses:

• Primary initial teacher education programmes: Bachelor of Education and Professional Master of Education
• Bachelor of Education through the medium of Irish