Third Level Education

Dáil Éireann Debate, Thursday - 19 October 2023

Thursday, 19 October 2023

Questions (75)

Richard Boyd Barrett

Question:

75. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science if he will, in light of the independent national review of State supports for PhD researchers, review his recent announcement and bring the stipends of all PhD researchers, not just those funded by Science Foundation Ireland, SFI, and the Irish Research Council, IRC, up to the living wage; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [45985/23]

Oral answers (8 contributions)

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

Earlier this year, the Minister made a commitment to make Ireland one of the best places to do a PhD. In the recent budget, he failed to live up to that commitment. He provided for an increase to €22,000 a year in the stipend, but that applies only to PhD researchers funded by SFI and IRC, who make up fewer than 30% of the total. The payment is still well below a living wage or the average stipend for PhD students in the rest of Europe. What will the Minister do to fulfil his commitment and ensure PhD candidates have a living income?

Deputy Simon Harris

I acknowledge that the Deputy raises this issue with me regularly. Every year since I became Minister, we have made improvements to PhD stipends, and rightly so because they are not where they need to be. The first change we made was to address a bizarre discrepancy that existed between the stipend for a PhD researcher with the Irish Research Council and that for a PhD researcher with Science Foundation Ireland. In last year's budget, the stipend was increased by €500 for both SFI and the IRC, bringing stipends in Ireland to €19,000, and under the budget delivered in recent weeks, I have secured funding to increase the PhD stipend provided by the competitive funding agencies under my Department to €22,000 per student per annum, an increase of €3,000.

I acknowledge clearly, and am not in any way reneging from the fact, that the independent report I commissioned recommends getting to €25,000. Anybody reading the report honestly will also recognise, however, that that may not be done in one go, and the report recognises that clearly as well. I do not want PhD researchers to think this is the end of the matter; it is not. The Government remains committed to getting to €25,000. We have gone from €19,000 to €22,000 and I hope to finish the job by getting from €22,000 to €25,000 in future budgets.

The Deputy asked why this applies only to funding agencies under my remit. I can direct and instruct only those agencies under my remit, but I hope others will follow suit. My understanding is the Health Research Board, HRB, is already ahead of the €22,000 and that Teagasc and individual universities will now consider this. Of course, they have until January before that PhD stipend comes in.

I have received the final review from the co-chairs. The Deputy will recall they gave us one report, which related largely to stipends, and another report was due. I have received that and am working my way through it with my officials. I am putting in place a work programme to see how we can progress the recommendations and I hope to be in a position to publish that in the coming weeks.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

The Minister said he just cannot increase the figure to €25,000.

Deputy Simon Harris

I did not say that.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

Why can he not do that? I do not accept he cannot. The research and development tax credit is worth €750 million a year in most cases to multinationals. I would much rather give our PhD researchers a living income and cut slightly the money going to the most spectacularly profitable companies in the world, and the Minister would have plenty of money. In our budget submission, we proposed a stipend for all PhD researchers and costed it at €100 million. We could take €100 million, therefore, off the super-profitable multinationals and give it to PhD researchers to allow them to have a living income. The Government does have a mechanism to do this because it gave a once-off cost-of-living payment of €500 to everybody. The idea, therefore, the Minister can do it only for people in agencies under his remit is simply not true because the Government did it on a once-off basis for everybody. Let us give everybody who is a PhD researcher a living wage. The money is there.

Deputy Simon Harris

Of course, what I say is true in that I can direct only agencies under my remit, but the Deputy is entirely correct that, generally, other parts of government follow suit as well. The main funders of PhD researchers, from a State point of view, include individual institutions, SFI, the IRC, Teagasc and the HRB. The HRB has moved, the IRC and SFI are now moving and Teagasc will consider the matter. Moreover, I know from conversations with individual university presidents that they, too, are looking at this issue. In fairness, they have been among the strongest advocates for our PhD researchers and I expect announcements in that regard.

Budgets, however, are about trying to strike a balance between the variety of priorities I have within my Department's Vote, and while I want to look after PhD researchers and have increased their stipend by €3,000, I also thought it was important that we increased our student grants, reduced fees and could extend the rent tax relief to families and invest in literacy. The Deputy and I might have differing views on economic policies but I think supporting companies locating in this country is a good thing. We are going to get to the €25,000. Our stipends are now ahead of the UK, at €22,000, as a result of the budget.

Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett

Will the Minister clarify whether PhD researchers are treated like workers? Members of the Postgraduate Workers Organisation are in the Gallery and this is another issue they have asked about. If a PhD researcher has the same status as a worker, they should get sick leave and all the other entitlements a worker gets, given they are workers and without them our universities and other third level institutions would not be able to function. They need to be acknowledged as such.

When the Minister says he is going to try to increase the stipend, will that be for everybody? Huge numbers of our PhD researchers are on miserable incomes, far less than the stipend, and the Minister could have at least met the recommendation of €25,000. If one deserves it, they all deserve it but even that is far less than the average among the rest of Europe and very significantly less than would be required to make the country, as the Minister suggested will be the case, the best place in Europe to be a PhD student. Our PhD researchers, who are driving research and innovation and keeping our universities going, are living in poverty. Moreover, there are also the visa and immigration issues that many of them are facing and they would like to know what the Minister is going to do about them. He knows what the issues are.

Deputy Simon Harris

I do know what the issues are and I have engaged with many of our PhD researchers. As the Deputy knows and as I said earlier, a second report that was due from the co-chairs has been received by my Department and will be considered and published in the coming weeks. That report was charged with looking at a variety of other issues above and beyond the issue of stipends, and I know those issues are very important to PhD researchers, as they are to higher education in general and to Ireland Inc. I look forward to having a chance to consider that report, publishing it and publishing an action plan and work programme to progress those recommendations.

It is important, however, when we commission independent reports, that we do not just pick bits out of them. An excellent job was done in the independent report I commissioned, with excellent engagement from PhD researchers, which I acknowledge. It did recommend increases in stipends up to €25,000, but it did not say we should get there in one go and it did say the increases should be from January. That is why I have made sure, quite unusually for a budget, that when an increase comes in, it will come in from January, as opposed to having to wait until next September. Contrary to what people might be saying, this is not the last word on the matter. We will get to the €25,000 and I want to see that for all PhD researchers.