I move:
That a supplementary sum not exceeding £370,800 be granted to defray the charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1972, for the salaries and expenses of the Office of the Minister for Education (including Institutions of Science and Art), for certain miscellaneous educational and cultural services and for payment of sundry grants-in-aid.
The original Estimates for my Department totalled £83,368,000. Supplementary Estimates totalling £3,237,800 are now required.
They are made up as follows:
Vote 27: Office of the Minister for Education—£370,800;
Vote 28: Primary Education— £1,159,000;
Vote 29: Vocational Education— £650,000;
Vote 32: Universities and Colleges—£1,058,000.
A substantial amount of these Supplementary Estimates is due to increased salaries and wages. These account for £111,000 in the cost of Vote 27 and almost all the amount required for Primary Education.
In Vote 27 the other items which require additional funds are: University Scholarships, £27,800; Higher Education Grants, £30,000; The School Transport Services, £220,000; Purchase of Books (Grant-in-Aid), £12,000; Voluntary Youth Organisations, £25,000.
The extra money required for school transport is to offset the recent increases in fares and to allow me to continue the fares subsidy paid to CIE in order to keep at a reduced level the fares of pupils not qualifying for free transport.
The increased provision in subhead E.1 will allow the National Library to extend its holding of Irish newspapers on microfilm with a view to conserving the fragile and impermanent original newsprint, and also to conclude negotiations which have been in progress for some time for the acquisition of a valuable manuscript—the Book of Magauran—which should most appropriately be in the manuscript collection of the National Library.
The extra £25,000 in subhead H.10 will shortly be allocated in addition to the £100,000 already provided by way of grants-in-aid to various youth and sport organisations.
In Vote 30 an additional £62,000 is sought for the running costs of regional technical colleges.
The extra £603,000 being provided for the annual grants to vocational education committees is intended to put vocational education committees in funds to meet the cost of the 13th round of wages and salary increases; also to enable them to meet other increased charges and where necessary to meet overdrafts.
In the case of Vote 32—Universities and Colleges and Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies—the total additional provision proposed amounts to £1,058,000. The extra grants are being made available in respect of current expenditure only, and for the most part represent further subventions for University College, Dublin, University College, Cork, University College, Galway, and Trinity College, Dublin. The extent to which the deficits of those four colleges have been accumulating has been causing concern not only to the authorities of the colleges but also to me, as Minister for Education. This is a matter which the Higher Education Authority has under active consideration with a view to the introduction in due course of a system of control of university expenditure based on unit costs and agreed annual budgets which will ensure that income and expenditure will be brought into balance and that deficit financing will cease to be a feature of university administration.
The Supplementary Estimate accordingly includes amounts which are intended to improve the deficit position of each of the four colleges at the end of the current financial year, as well as provision to meet the cost of the first phase of 13th round salary and wage increases during the period from 1st January to 31st March, 1972, and sums necessary to continue the compensation of the colleges in respect of the limitation in certain faculties of the general increase of 25 per cent in university fees introduced with effect as from the beginning of the academic year 1970-71 and the further increase of 10 per cent in fees imposed by University College, Dublin, and University College, Cork, in the academic year 1971-72. The Supplementary Estimate also contains provision towards the cost of applying the first phase of 13th round salary and wage increases from 1st January, 1972, in certain other institutions which come within the ambit of Vote 32.