“UCD has released its financial statements for the 2015/2016 year. The statements reveal that despite a decrease of state funding, UCD experienced an increased overall income of 3.1% in the 2015/2016 academic year. State grants for UCD decreased by 2.3% from the previous academic year …” (more)
[Ruth Murphy, University Observer, 14 July]
“Third-level colleges are set to face heavy financial penalties for serious breaches such as unauthorised payments for staff, filing late accounts or giving misleading reports of governance issues. The move follows a series of controversies over the misuse of taxpayers’ money and allegations of mismanagement within the sector …” (more)
[Carl O’Brien, Irish Times, 14 July]
“Employers are to be given a greater say in shaping the type of education and training that is delivered over the coming years, in exchange for increases in payroll taxes. Earlier this year, Minister for Education Richard Bruton announced a proposal to raise an additional €200 million for the sector through increases in employers’ PRSI to the national training fund …” (more)
[Carl O’Brien, Irish Times, 14 July]
“The Government has been urged to take the idea of student loans off the table. A report published last year found that there was a funding gap of €5.5bn over the next 15 years in third level education. The Cassels report made a number of recommendations including a deferred payment scheme for students …” (more)
[BreakingNews.ie, 11 July]
“Union of Students in Ireland (USI) today called on Senators to support a Labour private members motion this Wednesday, rejecting any move to implement an income-contingent loan scheme but instead to publicly invest in third level education …” (more)
[Daniel Waugh, Union of Students in Ireland, 10 July]
“Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity): To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he will reduce the student contribution charge in third level education; his views on an organisation’s (details supplied) call for the charge to be reduced by a minimum of €250; and if he will make a statement on the matter …” (more)
[Dáil written answers, 29 June]
“Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail): To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if the €600 million base funding requirement in higher education institutions by 2021 identified by the Cassells report includes the €124 million that has been set aside from the calculation of the fiscal space for demographic increases in third level in 2018 and 2019 …” (more)
[Dáil written answers, 20 June]
“First came the hope, then the headaches. Even the weathered trade unionists and opposition politicians allowed themselves some optimism this week when Leo Varadkar announced the creation of a new ministerial position with responsibility for higher education. The ensuing furore over the creation of a new super junior ministry, however, has suggested some of this optimism might be misplaced …” (more)
[University Times, 18 June]
“Enda Kenny stood beside Minister for Education and Skills, Richard Bruton, in a primary school last July, discussing lighthouse keepers. Their job, he said, was to guide ships away from dangerous rocks and safely into harbours. This, in a nutshell, will be Bruton’s job now that he’s been reappointed to the Department of Education and Skills …” (more)
[Dominic McGrath, University Times, 15 June]
“It was not just candour, when the President of University College Dublin (UCD), Andrew Deeks, suggested the college might have to place a cap on Irish student places. Instead, it was the latest move in the long drawn-out game our universities are being forced to play with the Irish government – a government who seem unaware they are involved in any sort of gamble with our futures …” (more)
[University Times, 11 June]
“The recent rise of college in the QS rankings should be commended, as rankings matter. However, it does not alleviate the need for increased higher education funding …” (more)
[Rory O’Sullivan, Trinity News, 9 June]
“More than half of the money universities got this year to employ extra staff to deal with rising student numbers was absorbed by the Government decision to bring forward the €1,000 pay rise in the public service to April. The university sector received about €7m in the Budget specifically to cater for growing enrolments as part of the first additional State investment in higher education in a decade …” (more)
[Katherine Donnelly, Independent, 9 June]
“Yesterday’s announcement that Trinity has moved up 10 places to 88th in the QS World University Rankings should certainly be welcomed. After years of continuous decline, the reversal of this longstanding trend is a significant step for Trinity, and other Irish universities, in regaining their strong standing on the international stage …” (more)
[Simon Foy, University Times, 8 June]
Hugh Brady, until recently President of UCD, famously summed it up: universities can’t bargain well with government, because they have no hostages, nothing to threaten government with. And we have seen the results over the last decade. University autonomy has increasingly been treated as a tired technicality with no real substance to it. We have also seen massively reduced funding, huge growth in governmental controls, and significant public criticism premised on the assumption that what universities spend is ‘public money’.
But less and less of it is public money these days. Less than half of university income today comes from public funds, and the trend is steadily downwards. And the structural inability of the current government to take hard decisions pretty much guarantees that nothing much will change in the near future. Absent some remarkable change both in Ireland’s economic fortunes and in official attitudes, the public element in university funding will rapidly approach relative insignificance, while the government attempts to pull the strings that come with it ever tighter.
Hence UCD’s recent announcement. Other Irish universities are not quite at this stage yet, but most are not far off. This gives universities a greater freedom to manoeuvre and to bargain than they have had for a very long time. The DES has made it clear by its actions that it is not much bothered by crumbling university facilities or by appalling staff:student ratios. But it will begin to worry as universities openly muse that the limited funding they receive from government is not worth the burden of state regulation that now comes with it, or that it is simply not the universities’ job to keep large swathes of Irish youth out of the dole queue – especially those who need (and deserve) something quite different from what the universities have to offer. Least of all does the DES want the most successful universities to start arguing that they should be private institutions. But to avoid that, it must offer the universities something better. It must start to bargain at last.
The Blogmeister
“University College Dublin has warned it may have to reduce the number of places available for Irish students if it does not get more funds. There is no threat to the intake for this year, but UCD president Professor Andrew Deeks has sent a clear signal that patience is running thin on the issue of sorting out the financing of higher education …” (more)
[Katherine Donnelly, Independent, 8 June]
“Employers are resisting Government plans to oblige them to contribute more to higher education through increases in a payroll levy. Earlier this year, Minister for Education Richard Bruton announced a proposal to raise an additional €200 million for the sector through increases in employer’s PRSI to the national training fund …” (more)
[Carl O’Brien, Irish Times, 31 May]
“Employers and unions agree that ringfencing a portion of corporate tax or business profits could be a better way to bolster higher education funding than a government proposal to increase employers’ PRSI. The increased contribution has been suggested by Education Minister Richard Bruton and Public Expenditure Minister Paschal Donohoe through a proposed increase in the National Training Fund (NTF) levy …” (more)
[Niall Murray, Irish Examiner, 1 June]
“The Minister for Education and Skills, Richard Bruton TD and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Paschal Donohoe TD today (Wednesday) held a half-day forum in Dublin’s Iveagh House on the proposed Exchequer-Employer investment mechanism for Higher Education and Further Education and Training …” (more)
[Department of Education and Skills, 31 May]
“It is surprisingly difficult to get a consistent picture of university income in Ireland over the last decade. Accounting conventions have changed, as have the requirements from the Higher Education Authority in terms of detail. Finally, despite it being half way through 2017 it seems some, many, universities have not managed to get their 2016 or even 2015 accounts up and out …” (more)
[Brian M Lucey, 29 May]
“The Union of Students in Ireland has raised concerns over spending by higher education institutions following recent revelations about severance payments made to senior personnel in the sector. USI president Annie Hoey pointed out that students and the taxpayer fund the higher education institutions and said trust in their governance was ‘crucial’ …” (more)
[Éanna Ó Caollaí, Irish Times, 26 May]
