Joint Committee on Education, Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 19 Oct 2022

Education Issues: Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science

Chairman

On behalf of the committee, I would like to welcome the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Simon Harris, and his officials. The Minister is here today to discuss the following: the key recommendations contained in the joint committee report entitled, The Future Funding of Higher Education; student accommodation; PhD candidate remuneration; North-South cross-Border enrolment and the key recommendations contained in the joint committee report entitled, North-South Student Enrolment in Tertiary Education; and the withdrawal of CORU accreditation for the applied social care course at Dublin Business School.

The format of the meeting is that I will invite the Minister to make a brief opening statement. This will be followed by questions from members of the committee. Each member has been allocated six minutes to ask questions and for the Minister to respond. The committee will publish the opening statement on its website following the meeting.

Before we begin, I want to remind members of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the House or an official by making him or her identifiable. The Minister has five minutes.

Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (Deputy Simon Harris)

I thank the committee for the invitation to be here with my officials to discuss our plans for the sustainable future funding of the higher education sector, student accommodation and a number of other agenda items which have the Chair outlined. I previously said to this committee that neither I nor the Government would be found wanting when it comes to trying to addressing the question of sustainable funding. In working with this committee to make progress, we really believe sustainably funding higher education has a profound impact for our economy, society and the citizens we all serve. Therefore, I am pleased to be with here today to discuss our progress in implementing Funding the Future, our policy response to underfunding in the sector. Indeed, earlier today we had an implementation group meeting where we had a chance to meet with all of the stakeholders. This is an implementation group which I co-chair with Professor Anne Looney and Professor Tom Collins.

However, it would be remiss of me not to note the work of this committee in its report on sustainable funding. I thank the committee for sending it to me. As I outlined in my written response, a great many of its recommendations very happily dovetail with our priorities in Funding the Future, particularly the focus on staffing ratios and on quality and how those two important strands inter-relate in higher education.

The committee will recall that Funding the Future went beyond being a direct response to the European Commission's Directorate-General reform review because it also tried to settle the question of the funding model and the funding gap. It provided a clear and detailed economic assessment as to the funding options presented in the Cassells report. As was requested by this committee in 2019, the Government ruled out the possibility introducing student loans in the system. The Government committed to a multi-funded model of additional Exchequer investment and employer contributions through the National Training Fund.

In this year's budgetary process - this was an important development, and I hope a welcome one - we also committed to publishing an annual paper in advance of the budget on the cost of living and the cost of education in Ireland. That enables Government, the Opposition, stakeholders and this committee to scrutinise the various options available to reduce the cost of education for students and their families. The first of these assessments was published by my Department in August and it informed our decision-making in the Estimates process. I am sure we will have a chance to get into the detail of Funding the Future as we work through the questions. I will take my comments on as read, other than to say we are providing significant additional funding this year that will see a significant increase in staffing in the sector, which is important; a reduction in the staff-student ratio; and an opportunity to build capacity in the technological universities in regard to that. There will also be funding that will enable joint programmes to be co-designed across further educational training and higher education. This is a really key aim.

In terms of student accommodation, I want to be very clear on it. I have been pretty upfront about this and I do not think the current student accommodation strategy is fit for purpose. Much has changed in the world since it has been in place and we need to develop another one. The last thing we need to do is to start writing that now. The first thing we need to do is to look at the universities that have planning permission and to get building. That is what my Department is working on. It is finalising a proposal, which I intend to take to Government in the next few weeks, that will try to see Exchequer funding for the first time put into helping make student accommodation projects on publicly- or university-owned land with planning permission viable. As we get into 2023, we will look at replacing the existing student accommodation strategy and we look at the technological universities and others and their capacity to develop accommodation.

I want to touch on the issue of PhD students. We had a discussion on it during oral parliamentary questions in the Dáil last night. I committed on that occasion to carrying out a national review of PhD student supports, PhD stipends and how we look after our PhD students in this country. We have a lot of work to do. I have been very clear that this needs to be an external review and I would like to share the terms of reference with the committee. The scope of the review will include current PhD candidates' supports. This includes: financial supports, such as stipends, SUSI and others; the adequacy, consistency and equity of current arrangements across research funders and higher education institutions, including equity and welfare considerations; the status of PhD candidates and this debate around the student versus the employee, including a review of international comparisons and models; the impact on the funding of research programmes of any adjustments to current rates of support; graduate outcomes for PhD graduates, including return on investment and benefits to the learner; future-proofing supports; and visa requirements and duration for non-EU students, mindful that this is a matter for the Department of Justice and will require collaboration with that Department. In the coming days, I will announce the external chairs of that group.

These are requirements and duration for non-EU students, mindful that this is a matter for the Department of Justice and will require collaboration with that Department. I will announce the external chairs of that group in the coming days but I wanted to share that with the committee. It is my aim for it to conclude its work in early 2023.

On the issue of North-South cross-Border enrolment, I would like to thank the committee for its thoughtful contribution to the question of North-South enrolment in tertiary education in this report, and specifically its series of recommendations. The Chair will be aware that I have provided under a separate cover a detailed written response to that report and it is a very timely contribution to the question of North-South student mobility. I am convinced not just of the need to facilitate mobility, but also to ensure that firm foundations of collaboration between further and higher education institutions are protected and enhanced. There are common challenges facing education systems, North and South, and it is in the interests of all of us on the island of Ireland to ensure that every young person and every person on the island has access to the best possible educational opportunity. This is vital not only to our shared economic prosperity but to underpinning peace on the island. I also expect in the coming days to be able to make a significant announcement on the development of all-island research centres which I know is something this committee supports and has an interest in.

The final issue the committee asked me to touch on briefly and I am sure we will then engage on it, is with regard to the withdrawal of accreditation for the applied social care course at the Dublin Business School, DBS. I fully respect CORU's role as an independent regulator. That is right and proper. I also fully support the regulation of the profession. It is a good step forward in terms of standards. There must be appropriate mechanisms to ensure fitness to practise and the protection of the most vulnerable in society, so regulation is being introduced and the system is currently undergoing the transition to accreditation.

The social care workers register is due to open on 30 November 2023. This would begin a two-year transition period for existing practitioners to apply to register with CORU. On 30 November 2025, the title "social care worker" is due to become a legally protected title in Ireland. My officials are engaging with all relevant parties and will continue to do so. I have been very clear regarding the need for refunds from DBS to students and a recognition of the difficulties they have encountered. I also believe we need to look at how we ensure students can continue their studies and how they can transfer where possible to the Technological University, TU, Dublin. I want to thank TU Dublin for a very active engagement with Quality and Qualifications Ireland and DBS and for all their efforts to work out a solution for DBS students. I am happy to share more information in the questions. Go raibh maith agat.

Chairman

I thank Deputy Harris for his detailed opening statement. Our first questions are from Deputy Conway-Walsh followed by Deputy Crowe. If Deputy Crowe is not here it will be Senator Dolan.

Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh

How long do I have?

Chairman

We will give you six minutes but we will be lenient.

Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh

I cannot do a lot in six minutes.

Chairman

It will be a long six minutes.

Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh

I thank Deputy Harris. I will go straight for it so in terms of North-South enrolment and the Minister's comments on it. I welcome some of the Minister's comments but am a bit concerned that he talks about what has already been done. I acknowledge the good collaboration between some of the institutes, and the research hubs and the development in that regard. There is still greater potential there. It is the student mobility part that we have to take very seriously. I am disappointed and maybe we can have further discussions on why I think we need targets. It is a bit like increasing female representation in politics if we do not have targets. I feel we are a quarter of a century after the Good Friday Agreement and it concerns me that we still have such a low number of students going from North to South and South to North. There is a much wider issue here than education in terms of embedding peace and reconciliation, and increasing the understanding that we need across the island. I see the way those who are at third level from North and South engage and it does not matter what their constitutional aspirations are. The engagement that is there and that then spreads out in third level institutes is really positive and something we need to do. I ask that we look to see what more can be done there with the shared island unit.

I would particularly like to highlight the recommendation around adjusting grades from A-levels into leaving certificate points because that is probably the single biggest barrier to students from the North coming South. It has become more acute in recent years as we have had grade inflation in this State. It is something we need to look at further. We will have a number of witnesses before the committee to discuss this further so I ask the Minister to keep an open mind on it and see what ways we can work together specifically to get rid of some of these barriers. I know from talking to students and parents from the North that it is easier for someone from the North to go to Oxford or Cambridge than to go to the University of Galway, Dublin City University or one of those. We have to hear that and try to unblock those things so I hope we will have further discussions on it.

I welcome the setting up of the review group. Deputy Harris said in May this year that the funding gap would be closed over the next three budgets. Is that still the Minister's intention?

Regarding student accommodation, I want to ask about the links to affordability and how the Minister will ensure it. If third level institutions were to borrow all of the money they would have to charge roughly more than €12,000 per year to cover the cost of student accommodation as it is at present. That is not affordable accommodation as I know the Minister will understand.

We talked last night about the PhD researchers and we need to look at the apprenticeship model to see what we can learn from that and how we can put that into place.

It is very important that each of the CORU students have a place and have a pathway. There needs to be lessons learned for the future from what has happened to them. I want to see each and every one of those students have a pathway and obviously be reimbursed. We have a responsibility, albeit that their education was being provided by a private institute.

Deputy Simon Harris

I thank Deputy Conway-Walsh. I wish to assure her that my position on North-South is not just to list all we are doing and all that we have done. I genuinely share her view and am more convinced by the day from my engagement North-South, and from my visit to Queen's University Belfast where I gave a guest lecture over the summer months outlining my vision for an all-Island approach to higher education. It makes sense. I agree with the Deputy that regardless of one's political persuasion, the community one comes from in the North, on an island as geographically small as the island of Ireland it makes sense to work together just like we are in healthcare. As I said in my opening statement I also believe it makes sense beyond education. It makes sense in terms of embedding peace, in terms of getting to know each other and having a better understanding. There have been a couple of developments. The Higher Education Authority Act 2022, as I am delighted to now call it because the HEA Bill is now the HEA Act if anyone is wondering, is now the law of the land. We will move to commence that. We engaged on Committee and Report Stages on this legislation. It is a very clear function now for the HEA in terms of the promotion of cross-Border collaboration on higher education. It is now a function of the Higher Education Authority, very clearly and explicitly in that law.

Second, we are currently carrying out research to try to move beyond the anecdote in terms of student mobility and why people come or do not come North-South or South-North. I do not mean this in any way regarding Deputy Conway-Walsh's comments because she could legitimately throw it at me too. We are doing this research through the HEA to try to get under the bonnet as to what is going on in student mobility. We have the common travel area but why is student mobility somewhat stuck North-South and indeed east-west? We hope to publish that-----

Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh

We have outlined that in the report. I welcome that the Minister is doing that but there needs to be additionality in terms of what is here so maybe a deeper dive into the specifics.

Deputy Simon Harris

I read the committee's reports and take its recommendations on board so we are proceeding with that to try and get a concrete understanding, an actual database, as to what is going on here. I will not take too much time on this but there are a number of real actions that we are taking to try to accelerate all-island collaboration in both further and higher education. In 2023, will see the development of the first all-island apprenticeship, likely in the area of construction. Construction workers move around the island and it makes sense for the apprenticeship model. Also in 2023 there should be an all-island approach to medical education. We are almost there and have a bit of work to do. There has been a lot of really good work by my colleagues on that issue. We will likely see this month, if not next month, significant announcements on all-island research centres. We will talk about that. As soon as tomorrow I will be updated by officials on the work our Government is doing to advance our commitments on the New Decade, New Approach deal as regards Magee College. I know this is an important interest for this committee and I will keep it closely informed.

On the €307 million, it is my intention to close this gap as quickly as possible. I want to see this gap closed ideally in the lifetime of this Government. That is where the three budgets comment came from.

It is true, as we have discussed before, that ensuring people had food, light, heat and so on had to take priority in the measures we took in what became a cost-of-living budget. However, we managed to receive significant investment and I am pleased with how it has landed with the implementation group for Funding the Future. I will send the committee a note rather than taking up its time on this. There will be an additional €17.8 million for the universities and specialist colleges to strengthen capacity and resources, including effective staffing and reducing the staff-student ratio. The technological universities will also receive €17.8 million to strengthen their structural capacity in staffing and posts. Increased funding of €2.4 million will be allocated to medicine places and I am particularly excited about the €2 million to develop, co-design and co-deliver programmes between further education and training, FET, and higher education, HE. These are the additional Funding the Future measures and this is what the additional money will do. I will send the committee a detailed note on that.

The question on accommodation and affordability is valid. It is also the focus of our work. We cannot hand out taxpayers' money and be mute on the issue of affordability. I cannot get to where we are going immediately because I need Cabinet approval but I intend to go before the Cabinet committee on housing this month. We will make proposals on how we believe we can help to get a number of projects that have full planning permission unstuck. That is step one. We have set up a specific unit in the Department dedicated to student accommodation. There are a number of ways to slice and perhaps address the issue of affordability. I will be happy to come back to this committee for its views and input once those proposals are available.

Regarding the PhD issue, the Deputy referred to the apprenticeship model last night in the Dáil and again in the committee today. I spoke about whether a PhD student should be treated as a student or an employee. Different countries do different things. What is the best model? The scope of the review is broad enough to cover all of that. It is clear this will not only be about the appropriate level of stipend. That is important and it needs to be higher, but we also need to consider what other issues need to be addressed such as terms, conditions and pathways.

In the interests of time, I can send the Deputy and committee a note on DBS. The work on this matter is ongoing. The committee will be aware that a total of 85 learners were impacted by DBS. It is a private college but I do not say that to wash our hands of the issue. We want to help. Of the 85 learners, 15 graduated in 2022 and 2021, 37 were part-time learners and 31 were full-time learners. The 15 graduates have the option - and I am not trying to speak for them because I take the point that everyone is an individual - to avail of grant parenting provisions to become eligible for the register. The existing students who have not yet graduated need to see how they can continue their studies. Both TU Dublin and the Open Training College, OTC, are likely options but conversations are ongoing and we will continue to keep the committee updated about that.

Senator Aisling Dolan

I welcome the Minister and the team from the brand-new Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science. It is fantastic that we have this Department that is driving change and legislation, including the Higher Education Authority Bill 2022 which is ground-breaking legislation. It will drive funding in the third level sector.

It is great to see the detailed update the Minister gave to the committee. The €1,000 reduction in the registration fee provided for in the budget is extremely welcome. Parents and students have been given a deadline of the end of November to engage with their colleges and share their account details. I will also highlight that the SUSI application deadline is 3 November 2022 for any students who need to apply for that. The Minister is considering a review of that scheme as well. Hopefully the double payment will be made in December.

I was at a great event in Ballinasloe on Tuesday. The brand-new Technological University of the Shannon, TUS, in Athlone is establishing learning gates. I was not sure what a learning gate was. It is where students can come together and have a space to learn. Ballinasloe Area Community Development has a meeting room that students can access. They can access courses online and study in an environment where other students can also meet. The technological university will open 11 learning gates in the next few weeks and is even considering opening one in Dublin. It is phenomenal that we are seeing this outreach. I want to see campuses and centres of excellence in our regions, especially in Roscommon and east Galway, because that drives regional investment in our areas. It also drives excellence in academia because it engages and shows there is a focus. We need to see investment in the regions as well as in city centre locations and to work with different agencies in local areas to promote that. I am interested in the Minister's thoughts about regional development and how TUS has been able to do that.

Regarding PhDs, it is fantastic to see the review. Having worked in Science Foundation Ireland, SFI, I am aware of the challenges relating to supporting PhD and master's degree students. The Minister indicated the review will examine the status of PhD students, the stipends - of course €500 has been allocated in the budget - and international comparisons. Will the Minister provide a timeline? Is there a country that the Minister thinks manages PhDs best and is the one to look at? I am looking at the quality we have. Ireland ranks highly in expertise in many sectors and research areas through its principal investigators. Those principal investigators drive the funding that comes through SFI and the Irish Research Council, IRC, and then brings the PhD teams to Ireland to deliver and develop excellence here.

The Minister highlighted student accommodation as being one of the Department's key priorities, with a dedicated unit. I was delighted to hear about a 674-bedroom development when the Minister was visiting the brand-new University of Galway. Will he provide a timeline for that?

It is wonderful to hear about Funding the Future. The Minister stated the implementation team had been recruited. Will he update the committee on any outcomes from that?

I am happy to see the co-design between FET and HE. In relation to education and training boards, ETBs, I have a few questions about how the Department funds SOLAS which delivers FET and ETBs, but the Department of Education funds the administration and running of those organisations. Does the Minister have any comments on that? It can sometimes be a challenge in how we develop the staffing and capacity to deliver these courses, which the Minister stated is crucial, especially on the FET and HE side.

Deputy Simon Harris

The Senator covered a lot of ground so I hope she will bear with me. I thank her for working with me on the Higher Education Authority Bill. I enjoyed and appreciated her input.

I am pleased we have managed to reduce the student contribution fee by €1,000 on a one-off basis. I am equally, if not more, proud that we have come up with a proper structure to look at the issue of registration fees and grants in the round from next year. Senator Malcolm Byrne and I debated this point at different times but I think we have landed in a good place, because we have said everybody will receive €1,000. That is a cost-of-living measure and like many cost-of-living measures, it is universal and will be paid before the end of the year. Some 94,000 students will benefit. From next year, we have made a permanent reduction of €500 and linked it to the SUSI system. We have introduced an income threshold of €100,000 and a reduction of €500. That gives me and any future Ministers or Governments the ability to look at the registration fee as part of the overall grant system in future budgets. That is a good way of doing it as we will not be having separate conversations about SUSI and the registration fee. We are looking at the system and structure of the cost of education.

One of the good ideas to come out of the Funding the Future paper was a recommendation by one of my officials that we publish an annual cost-of-higher-education paper in advance of the budget. It has been done by the Department of Social Protection for many years. Papers on tax and welfare are published. We had not exactly been forgotten, but we were not up in lights in advance of the budget. This means that every year the Oireachtas, media, stakeholders and everyone else will get to see, debate and consider what could be done to help to reduce the cost of education, how much it would cost and the best choices available. That can only be good.

I am pleased that SUSI will issue double payments on 16 December 2022. That will come at a welcome time for many families and crucially the SUSI grants will rise by between 10% and 14% from January 2023. Last year and in most previous years, when SUSI grants rose, students had to wait until the following college year. They will rise from January 2023, which is important considering the pressure people are feeling.

I am interested in hearing more about the learning gates and perhaps going to see some of them. It is a good idea. The technological universities at their core are about regional development. They are about bringing access to education into the regions. They are about moving beyond the outdated concept that all roads from an educational point of view must lead to a big city. We have had a lot of success in recent years in setting up technological universities. I thank the committee for its work on this.

Capital investment is badly needed in the facilities. We will have an announcement at the end of this month or the beginning of next month on significant capital funding for technological universities. Many have applied.

That will come shortly. On research, we are making sure there are research-intensive institutions, looking forward to the ring-fenced funding for the TUs that will come through the European Regional Development Fund. I think it is a fund of approximately €80 million. The third is a meaty piece of work. There is a lot of work going on in my Department and with the OECD on academic contracts. Again, this is not about foisting something on people; it is about engaging and offering the contract so these TUs can reach their full potential. Now that they are set up, they are the three big things that are important.

On the PhD review, the timeline is that it will kick off in November and conclude in early 2023. We need to talk to them first, but I will announce the external chair or chairs of that by the end of the week, I hope, or certainly in the next week or so.

On the 674 beds in Galway, I had a chance to view the site when in Galway with the Senator for the renaming of the University of Galway. My understanding is that construction is due to be completed in January. There is then the fit-out process and all of that, so they will be on stream for the next academic year. The membership of the implementation group is quite broad but it contains the heads of SOLAS, Quality and Qualifications Ireland, QQI, Irish Universities Association, IUA, the president of the Students' Union, the general secretary of ICTU, representatives from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, the head of Aontas, representatives from the Higher Education Authority, HEA, and the Department of Education, my own Department, IBEC and me and the two co-chairs, Professors Tom Collins and Anne Looney. I think I have covered all the questions. I would also like to take the opportunity to pay tribute to Patricia King on her retirement from ICTU.

Senator Aisling Dolan

I thank the Minister.

Deputy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin

I welcome the Minister and his officials. I join with the previous speaker in congratulating the Minister on the Department and its success. Some of us were unconvinced as to the necessity of a new Department but it has proven its worth. It is now a feature and a fixture and deserves to be. The Minister made a success of it and that needs to be acknowledged. We share many aspirations about free education, particularly in the area of literacy, which he has done great work on and I congratulate him on that.

On the cross-Border piece, I want to focus on one issue today, if I might, which feeds into the cross-Border discussion. On teacher training, to put it delicately, there is an issue regarding the cohort of teachers we are training and the qualifications that necessitate their access to teacher training courses. Barriers to teacher training are placed in front of young people from certain backgrounds. They might be from disadvantaged or Traveller backgrounds or they could be from the North or overseas. Some of those barriers relate to the Irish language. This is a difficult one to verbalise because many people feel very strongly about the Irish language, as I do myself; I have a degree in Irish. I try to pronounce my name to people with great difficulty in every election. The serious point is that the requirement of the standard of Irish to enter training colleges needs to be challenged. What we need in teacher training is a diverse population of teachers in our primary schools that reflects the children they are teaching. It is still a very white, middle-class teaching profession. It does not reflect a new Ireland or any new Ireland we want to promote. The Irish language could also be seen as a barrier, particularly in terms of the North. Would it not work better, considering the new Ireland we hope to engage with, to have people from more disadvantaged backgrounds, who may not have had higher level Irish as an option in their second level school? They certainly might not have had the chance to go to the Gaeltacht three summers in a row for financial reasons. Would it not be better to focus on their ability to learn and teach Irish when they are in training college, rather than as a requirement to get into training college?

It is still such a powerful profession. If someone comes from a minority, be it ethnic or any other kind of minority, particularly disadvantaged children, and if he or she has somebody from his or her community as a learning and educational leader in the classroom, it is incredibly powerful. While it is not the only barrier, perhaps the Irish language requirement could be tweaked a little, not in any way to reduce the quality of Irish language teaching in the classroom, but to do it in a way that teachers are empowered to teach Irish better when they are in training college, rather than having that funnel exclude some people who may not have had the opportunity to learn Irish at second level. They could be students from the North or a disadvantaged background or abroad. How powerful would it be to have somebody who came here as an asylum seeker working as a primary school teacher? The one reason they probably cannot is the requirement to have Irish entering teacher training college. It is an issue I have tried to pursue for a long time. At one point, we had a number of students from DEIS second level schools in my constituency learning Irish and getting grinds in Marino Institute of Education. That was a solution. Some managed to achieve the required Irish language level and they became teachers. We were proud of that, but it is not a long-term fix. I wanted to bounce that off the Minister, to use this platform to raise it and see if he has any sense of how we could move on that.

Deputy Simon Harris

I thank the Deputy. When he mentioned pronouncing his name, I thought of Kamala Harris. He could do very interesting election ads. He probably has-----

Deputy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin

I know. You need your mammy to row in as well though, as she helpfully did-----

Deputy Simon Harris

I thank the Deputy for his comments on adult literacy. I should acknowledge, because it is the truth, that the Deputy was the first Oireachtas Member who spoke to me about the issue of adult literacy. We have been doing a lot of work on it as a Department, trying to advance some of the issues we discussed. We now have a national programme office set up to deliver the new adult literacy for life, ALL, strategy, as well call it. Probably more importantly, flowing from that, we are actively putting in place regional literary co-ordinators. Key to the progress of this strategy is that it is not a document that resides in Dublin or the Department or an office, but that we empower communities to see what they need to do in their area to roll out literacy initiatives. For some, that might be through their local sports club or other local organisations. However, I acknowledge that there is significant work going on.

Before straying, the issue of teacher education still resides in the Department of Education and the initial teacher education unit. I can certainly refer these views to them and seek a view and engagement from them. Having acknowledged that it is within their area of responsibility - this is a personal view - but in general, as we try to reform the education system, we should be more concerned about the standards somebody has obtained upon exit of university, as opposed to on entry. That is not a bad philosophy to approaching this. We have seen good practice in the likes of Dublin City University, DCU, which the Deputy will be familiar with given his geographic location. We have seen good examples from DCU where they go out into communities, particularly into socioeconomically disadvantaged communities, to identify potential teachers among young people through local community groups and sports clubs and try to mentor, identify and encourage them to take the plunge.

My Department has the programme for access to higher education, PATH, bursaries, which are access to education bursaries. There are specific bursaries now in place for members of the Traveller community who wish to access teacher education. That is a slightly wider point I am making than specifically around the Irish language issue. I will certainly feed those views back. In general, and I saw it in my time at the Department of Health, diversity in professions is a good thing. If our professions are not diverse, it stores up a lot of issues, including the lack of role models and identified people for all communities. Professor Anne Looney, who is probably well known to the Deputy, is co-chairing our implementation group. She leads the teacher education initiative in DCU. I might seek a more informed view from her as well. I am happy to share that with the Deputy.

Senator Malcolm Byrne

I thank the Minister and his officials. Unlike Deputy Ó Ríordáin, my party and I had no doubt that the new Department would be a success.

Deputy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin

I was trying to be nice.

Senator Malcolm Byrne

It was the right decision. The Minister and his officials have achieved an awful lot in a relatively short period, both in terms of what we have achieved with TUs, the higher education Act and some of the funding reforms. The Minister will appreciate that my job over the next five and a half minutes is not to spend my time praising him but to focus on a couple of the key outstanding issues.

I will put one question directly, before coming to others. The Minister made a commitment that the sum identified in Funding our Future - €307 million, which is the funding shortfall for the higher education sector - would be addressed over three budgets. While I appreciate his point, I think that the €40 million in the budget this year only went part of the way and represented a disappointing movement on the €307 million shortfall. There are two budgets left, however, assuming the Minister remains in the Department. That means we are going to have to look at an additional €130 million, or more, in each of budgets 2024 and 2025. How confident is the Minister that the balance of the sum that has been identified - the shortfall - will be delivered? How committed is he in that regard?

Deputy Simon Harris

I am very committed. I am not an island and I am not the entire Government. It will require the Senator's party, my party and Senator Pauline O'Reilly's party working together to prioritise these issues. I have had great support from the Taoiseach on this. I want to genuinely acknowledge that, but it will require a collective effort from the whole Government. There are a couple of reasons to be hopeful. One, we need to grapple with the National Training Fund surplus. I am not suggesting that it is easy; it is not. If it was easy it would have been done already, but it still needs to be done. For anyone watching these proceedings, the National Training Fund is an account that employers across the country pay into. It has a very large surplus, which will amount to over €1 billion shortly. It is on track to go to over €2 billion in the coming years. That was always being paid into to provide additionality in terms of skills and training. That is one helpful suggestion I make to broader government-----

Senator Malcolm Byrne

That is not going to make the full €130 million next year.

Deputy Simon Harris

Given that it has over €1 billion sitting in it and soon it will have €2 billion, I believe it could if there was a political will and a bit of ingenuity. I am not saying it should, though. I believe it is a pot that needs to be considered.

I would like to mention a second issue that did not get enough of a hearing, although it got a fair hearing today at the implementation group from the sector, which I appreciate. We all talk about the €307 million, including me. We are all committed to filling that hole. We did something else in the budget, however. If we had not done it, the hole would have grown. There €307 million in money owed to the sector. I acknowledge the work of my colleague the Minister, Deputy Michael McGrath, on this. We got agreement for the first time to fund every new additional student entering college from September at the new higher Funding our Future rate. Every new additional student who goes into college from September will be funded 25% more in terms of funding to the university than students currently. As that washes through the system, for want of a better phrase, it means we become sustainable from this moment on. I said very clearly to the IUA and others that if we had not done that - if we had announced a larger sum for the core funding but not done that - we would have created another problem.

The third thing is that this is year one of implementation; it truthfully is. It is the first budget we have received for Funding our Future. Of course, we would all have liked it to be higher but we had to balance it with the cost-of-living pressures for students and their families and the significant investment we put into that. It will require time to build up our own capacity as a sector in terms of delivery. There are some key things, as we said at the implementation group today. We will need to prove that the €40 million makes a real and tangible difference, particularly in terms of staffing ratios, and does not - I am not suggesting this will happen - disappear or go into block grants. I think it could make a difference of at least half a point in the staff-student ratio this year. That is a tangible thing. When we go back to the Estimates discussions next year, we will be able to look at what we did with the €40 million and imagine what we can do into the future. I will work very closely with the Senator on this.

Senator Malcolm Byrne

I appreciate that. I have a number of other issues to raise. I do not know if there will be a chance for a second round of questions.

Chairman

There will be.

Senator Malcolm Byrne

There will. I will not go through all of them. I want to raise the question of student accommodation, which remains a critical challenge. We should be supporting our higher education institutions to develop as much as on-campus accommodation as possible. This would help to relieve pressure on the wider housing issue. As the Minister knows, there is a significant cost to higher education institutions to be able to provide such accommodation in a way that will be affordable to students. The only way that is going to be done at present in most cases is where there are supports made available from the State for the provision of student accommodation. I know the Minister has indicated support for this. Will we be able to see that for 2023? Can we see that in a way which ensures that at the start of the 2023-24 academic year, we may be able to see a level of State investment to support on-campus student accommodation? Critically, it must be affordable for students to rent thereafter.

Deputy Simon Harris

I am not just an individual Minister who is saying he would like to do something about student accommodation and asking whether somebody should do something about it. Thankfully, it is more than that. At a Cabinet committee on housing in July, I think, the Taoiseach and I strongly put forward the view that there was a need for an intervention and the Taoiseach provided his imprimatur for this to happen. Since then, we have been working on developing proposals for how we can unlock or unstick, in the first instance, universities that have planning permission today. This is not a critical comment on them; far from it. It has not been viable for them to build. We will be returning to the Cabinet committee on housing this month and then, ultimately, to the Cabinet to try to press "Go". I imagine it may be done project by project. Affordability will be an element. We cannot have a situation where the State is paying money and is agnostic on the issue of affordability. I will not read out the entire list of those with whom we are working closely. I can share the list with the committee. There are five traditional universities today with planning permissions to build. If you look at the totality of that, you are talking about a significant number of beds that could be built. Will all these beds be built for 2023? Of course they will not. That is not what the Senator is asking. If we are to move beyond the annual September crisis around student accommodation, at some point somebody has to take the bull by the horns and try a new model; that is what we are going to do.

The second piece will have to involve the technological universities. The Senator will be familiar with the position in the south east. With the exception of the former Waterford Institute of Technology, they have never built a student accommodation bed. I am not being critical of them because they had not been allowed to do so under the borrowing framework. We have now clarified under the borrowing framework that they can. When we met the chairs of the governing authorities, our message to them was to get ready and begin to prepare their plans. That will be coupled with the new student accommodation strategy. I expect that in this calendar year, we can make progress on what the policy intervention looks like and that in 2023, we can make progress on delivering some of these projects.

Senator Malcolm Byrne

I appreciate that. There must be three elements to the research strategy. First, there must be the structural elements around how we operate research. Second, we need to address the levels of supports for research students, particularly PhD candidates. The levels are completely insignificant given what we are expecting of them, particularly where they are living. The third thing that is crucial to a research strategy, in order to ensure we do not get bogged down in the organisations that run it, is the purpose of research, how we are going to drive it and whether there will be an emphasis on blue sky research. The Minister may want to speak about his plans for this and if there is a specific timetable on it.

Deputy Simon Harris

I will be brief. I can send the Senator more details. The PhD student review is a big part of getting that piece right. It is a question of how we treat PhD students, how we attract people to the country and how we retain people. It is an issue about their well-being and welfare and about national competitiveness. I think the Senator and I agree on that. He has raised this issue of PhD students quite a lot with me. This short, sharp review has broad terms of reference but is focused at the same time. It involves external people. It will report back early in 2023 and will give us a roadmap to get to a much better place.

We will bring forward legislation in 2023 around what the structures will look like. As the Senator implied, it is not about getting bogged down in structures - as the title suggests, it is about the impact that those structures will make. We must be clear that it is about supporting all forms of research, and not just enterprise-related research. That is something I think the Senator and I share a view on. I am happy to update the committee on where we are at in the implementation of the strategy. A number of new groups have started meeting. We are working closely with the vice-presidents of research across the universities. It is a strategy that has been pretty well received by the sector, probably because it has been co-designed by it and the experts. I am happy to send the Chair a detailed note on the implementation of Impact 2030.

Chairman

I call Senator Pauline O'Reilly.

Senator Pauline O'Reilly

I welcome the Minister. It is very worthwhile that the Minister is available to the committee to give us constant updates because it is a new Ministry. As Senator Malcolm Byrne said, there must be some recognition of our Government partners having pushed for this Ministry in particular. It has shown its worth, as has the Minister. Given the limited time, I want to focus on one area the Minister has come here to speak to us about and that is PhD candidates. We are doing another piece of work at the moment around mental health supports within primary and secondary schools. One of the things the stakeholder groups have raised with us as an issue is recruitment of those who support.

We already know through child and adolescent mental health services, CAMHS, that it is an issue but we have a backlog in this country when it comes to psychological supports in education. I know the Minister is aware of this and that the working group is also working on it, but there are three types of PhD students going through psychological research programmes and two of those are funded through the HSE. More recently the students on the counselling programme are also funded since this budget, but the last are the educational psychology PhD candidates. It is very hard to explain or understand why that is, particularly as they all come to their courses from the same route. These candidates do 300 hours of work placement, often with CAMHS and some of it with disability services so they are hugely valuable for us, even while they are doing that training. Looking at the clinical psychology PhD candidates for instance, they are being paid a full-time salary for their work as a PhD candidate. Only 18 of these educational psychology PhD students are due to graduate in the next year, or possibly in 2024. Can the Minister explain what the difficulty is in ensuring that kind of equality between all of those candidates given that when they come out, they have the exact same qualifications?

Deputy Simon Harris

I thank the Senator for her comments and for all the work she does in engaging with the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science on a whole range of issues related to the work of the Department, in Galway but also nationally. There are a couple of things here. The points made by the Senator highlight the need to overhaul the system we have in place in terms of PhD supports. We have been looking at this very intensively particularly in recent weeks but also in recent months. The situation is that my Department pays stipends through our agencies such as the Irish Research Council, the IRC, and Science Foundation Ireland, SFI, which are at an equivalent level of €18,500 each. Some PhD courses do not have a stipend. Some are paid directly by their institution such as those in the Higher Education Institutions, HEI, but that level is decided by the HEI from their block grant generally. Then some PhD students are paid through private sources or private funding received by their university. In relation to the specific issue raised by the Senator, for the health programmes, the HSE and the Department of Health fund to recruit. The Department of Education is not within my remit but I believe it is considering this for educational psychologists. I said this in the Dáil last night but the broader point I want to make is that as part of the review, we need to look at the fact that we do not actually have a minimum recommended stipend in Ireland. There are so many different types and there cannot be a minimum. I will pose the question as opposed to pre-empting the outcome of the review. Should there not be a floor for the level of stipend supports for all PhD students in Ireland? At the moment there is not. I looked at this in the context of the budget, even those funding schemes within my remit that I can provide financial assistance to, or at least easily provide financial assistance to, are not 100% clear either. The PhD review we are announcing this evening will be an opportunity to tease through those issues but on the specific point the Senator makes in relation to that relatively small number of students, the responsibility lies with the Department of Education. My understanding is that it is considering a model similar to that used by the Department of Health. I will ask officials in the Department of Education as a result of this exchange to interact with the Senator directly.

Senator Pauline O'Reilly

While I appreciate responsibility lies with the Department of Education, the problem for the Minister's Department is that people are taking a different route because they are funded and at the end of the day, they become qualified psychologists. From our point of view, as a society this means we do not have enough educational psychologists. It is important to say it cannot be just left with the Department of Education to sort out because this is a specific issue which is funnelling people in a direction and that has to be recognised as a State policy in relation to third level education.

Deputy Simon Harris

I do not disagree with that at all. I am certainly not suggesting it would be and that is why I referenced the body of work that my Department tends to do with this external review about PhD support students, the consistency of those supports and how they are applied. I accept that 100%. The Senator touched on another issue on which I will not go into too much detail in case I frustrate the Chair, but it is the issue around workforce planning. I will be blunt with this committee and say I am really concerned about this. There have been examples of good practice particularly in recent months. I am really proud of the work my Department, the Department of Health, the HSE and others have done in relation to medicine places. I can sit here this evening and tell the committee there is a funded multiannual plan to increase medicine places over the next number of years. Some 60 extra places went in this September. The deans of the medical schools did great work and I thank them, and the HSE also. All of that is great but I cannot say that exists in many other areas of the public service and that frustrates and worries me. As a Minister for some time, I know that funding initiatives can be announced but if there are not people to roll-out these in terms of the delivery on the ground, it will not make progress with waiting times and lists. I am very passionate about the need to accelerate the engagement with other Government Departments. They need to see this relatively new Department as a resource and properly interlock with it on workforce planning. How many speech and language therapists do we need in Ireland and how many occupational therapists and nurses? It is not only how many we need but how we actually get there together. I am not being critical. I have seen exchanges on health committees where people get tetchy when these issues are raised. This is not criticism of any other Department but we are all public servants here and we need to step up to the plate. We need to properly plan the workforce. I do not intend to become pen pals in terms of correspondence between my Department and others in relation to this issue. It is too serious. We now have settled the question of medicine and I want to praise the Department of Health for its work on that but we need to now do it in relation to health, social care and disability professions. I know the Minister for Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth, Deputy O'Gorman, is up for this; as is the Minister of State, Deputy Rabbitte, the Minister for Health, Deputy Donnelly, and the Minister for Education, Deputy Foley. If I continue in this role, a key priority of mine in 2023 will be the whole issue of workforce planning. My Department is now engaging at an official level with a number of Departments on this as well.

Chairman

I have a couple of questions. First, I think the Taoiseach would be mad to get rid of the Minister, Deputy Harris. He is doing a fantastic job in that Department.

(Interruptions).

Chairman

One of the single biggest issues facing families and students is the whole area of accommodation. I know the Minister's Department is very active in trying to come up with solutions. I met the Chair of the Technical Universities and some of the presidents recently and one of the issues they spoke about was being able to borrow as other universities can. Will the Minister bring us up to date on that? I am not sure if that question has been asked already.

Second, what collaboration has the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science and the Department of Housing had with the likes of Dublin, Galway, Limerick and Cork City Councils where some of our bigger third level institutions have real issues in trying to accommodate students? The financial contribution the Government gave back to students in the recent budget is very welcome but it is being offset by the cost of accommodation. The students had their walkout protest last Thursday. You hear of some students living in tents - I do not know but that is the information that is out there. Can the Minister address those few issues?

Deputy Simon Harris

Students and their parents and families are not in any way immune from the real pressures people are feeling in relation to the cost-of-living crisis. It is palpable. It is difficult and challenging and we really want to look at practical ways of helping. That is why we have taken immediate measures between now and the end of the year with €143.5 million of direct financial assistance going to students and their families be that the double Student Universal Support Ireland, SUSI, payment just before Christmas; the increase in the student grants that will kick in from January; the refund of €1,000 additional funding for the student assistance fund, which can perhaps be viewed as a hardship fund; extra supports for postgraduate students and an additional increase in the PhD stipend. These are practical measures we wanted to take now to help people and in recognition of the fact that when you look at housing and student accommodation, there are two parts to it. There is affordability and supply and in relation to affordability some of the measures taken in the budget will genuinely assist. For the information of the committee, figures as of today show there are approximately 2,065 rooms, what used to be called digs, available for rent across the country.

These are advertised on student portals and the like. When I meet students and talk about this I understand it does not work for everybody but it is working for thousands of students. It does work sometimes for people who have a spare room in terms of the cost of living impact. We have made a number of changes around social welfare rules to make it easier for people to keep the living alone and the fuel allowances and the pension and rent out the spare room. While people say there is nothing available on Daft.ie or Myhome.ie I encourage any student or parent to look at the various digs options available. It is certainly better than some of very difficult scenarios that I sometimes hear of. That is not me saying that is the long-term solution or an optimum policy. It is not. It is getting on with building. I want to be very clear and I have said this directly to the Technological Universities and will be saying it when I am with the Chairman and Senator Byrne when I am in the south-east on Monday, so let me say it again here. We are ready to talk and want to talk and are open for business in terms of the Technological Universities and the borrowing framework. They know this, in fairness, and they are working hard on this. We will work with them to accelerate and develop any plans they have to deliver student accommodation. It will be really important for the success of the TUs, Technological Universities, because they are about serving their region but also about attracting people into the region to study and to do that you need accommodation. I agree with that.

On the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage I thank the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, and his officials for the excellent collaboration between my Department and his. We are extremely grateful for the work they are doing with us and for allowing us to take learning from some of the schemes they have put in place more broadly in society. We are interacting with the Cabinet Committee on Housing and we will be back to that committee this month as well on that. On the issue of affordability I have acknowledged the measures we are taking in the budget to put money back in people's pockets. The reason we are doing it is because we know people are experiencing rising costs. I know the Chair did not ask me but I should say, because the Chair and Senator Byrne regularly talk to me on this, the South-East Technological University moving ahead with securing the new site for the Wexford campus is a massive priority for us. There is funding set aside in my Department and I acknowledge and thank Mr. Enright, the chief executive of Wexford County Council, and the council for the role they are playing to secure that site for us.

Chairman

That leads me on to my next question. I will be parochial and I know Senator Byrne will probably back me on this or if he wishes to come in on it we will have further questions. After the securing of the site and when funding is sought for the new build of the facility - I understand Carlow and Waterford will be looking for capital investment as well - I am parochial in looking for capital investment for the Wexford site so there will not be any undue delay once the site is secured and once it goes to planning. I know it is a long road ahead. I hope the Department will be there and willing to help and not put any barriers in place regarding the funding for the infrastructure and the construction.

Deputy Simon Harris

Chairman, we are in the business of taking down barriers and working very closely and collaboratively with the new Technological University, with the chair of the governing authority and with the President, Professor Veronica Campbell. There is a great leadership team and governing authority now in place which really hit the ground running in their formal launch on Monday. I do not mean this in a flippant way but we are not in the business of buying sites and using taxpayers' money for sites for them to sit idle. We are in the business of purchasing sites and expanding footprints because we buy into the argument and into the compelling vision that there needs to be a modern fit-for-purpose campus in Wexford. I was really impressed when I visited the campus in Wexford with the Chairman and Senator Byrne and with what is going on there. I was not impressed with the facilities that people have to work and learn in. I met some very inspiring students there particularly around the whole area of lifelong learning, people who told me very bluntly and very clearly that they would not have been in higher education were it not for being able to go to the Wexford campus. We now just need to provide them with a fit-for-purpose campus.

The Chair is also right to indicate it is always good to be truthful in this. The site was secured and then we get on to the planning etc. These are processes that take time but these will be processes that we will work with the Technological University to progress as a priority. These are autonomous institutions, as they remind me, and the governing authority sets out its own strategic priorities. We will see an expansion in Waterford and I am clear on that. There are plans for Carlow and there are plans for Wexford too. Securing and developing the new site and building a modern fit-for-purpose campus on the site are shared priorities of the Government and of the Technological University.

Chairman

I thank the Minister. I know we are all looking forward to the upcoming launch. I have one question for the Minister. I raised this in a parliamentary question to his Department regarding the Marino Institute of Education and he probably knows the question I am going to ask.

Deputy Simon Harris

I do.

Chairman

It is about the 400 on undergraduate courses at the Marino Institute of Education, including the bachelor of education in primary teaching, primary teaching, the bachelor of science in education studies and bachelor of science in early childhood education. I have been in contact with some of the students in light of the recent budget announcement that all third level students were expected to be entitled to the €1,000 rebate on college fees. Unfortunately some students in Marino Institute of Education will not qualify for this. Is there any way that we can solve this issue? I am not looking for an answer now and I do not expect it as it was not part of the remit of appearing before the committee but if there is anything at all the Minister or his Department can do on this it would be very much appreciated.

Deputy Simon Harris

First, I was in Marino not that long ago and it is a very fine college doing a really impressive job providing us with the teachers and educators, including in early years, for now and into the future and I am very grateful for what they do. I had a very good conversation there with the president, a very impressive individual, about her and her management team's vision for the future of the Marino Institute of Education. I launched their strategic plan that day. There is a really important conversation about Marino and where it fits and I say that in a positive way, about where it wants to fit in our higher education landscape and the HEA Act 2022 also gives us opportunities to accelerate those discussions. We have discussed this in relation to a number of institutions. I do need to be honest and of course I will meet with Marino and the president and will engage with her on this and other issues. However for clarity, and it is always important to be clear on these things, the reduction of €1,000 is linked to the payment of a €3,000 registration fee. There are lots of different students in lots of different scenarios across the country. The way I think of it in my head and the way I explain it to the public is if you are levied the €3,000 fee you are automatically entitled to the €1,000 reduction. If you are not, you are not. That is not to be in any way dismissive but it is just to be truthful. That is where we started in terms of reducing the cost of education. We do intend to do more. We are engaging directly with Marino on this and we are assessing the situation. My understanding is that Marino sets its own rate for non-approved courses so there is an engagement going on with Marino but it is the free fees initiative, the €3,000 fee, that the €1,000 reduction applies to. Any other fee that is not from the free fees initiative does not currently quality for the reduction. We will continue to engage with them.

Chairman

Okay. I will go back to Deputy Conway-Walsh for a final round of questions and then to Senator Byrne.

Deputy Rose Conway-Walsh

I wish to ask the Minister about the veterinary college and the situation with vets in the country. He will know that at the moment we only have University College Dublin, UCD, and from memory there are around 80 places there. We have a huge shortage so we find ourselves with hundreds of students having to go abroad every year to train as vets. Meanwhile, and we talk about workforce planning, we have serious situations particularly for large animals in rural Ireland where we do not have the vets to meet the need that is there. I know there are a couple of new colleges being talked about but could the Minister update us on that? I also know that there is currently no veterinary college in the North but there is also one being talked about in the North. I know I have sprung this on the Minister but I would really appreciate it if he could give me an update on it and see how we can progress the proposals that are there.

Deputy Simon Harris

I am very happy to. I am relying on my memory on this because I do not have it in a brief in front of me but I have quite a bit of familiarity with it because I had a very good meeting recently with the delegation of veterinary education leaders from the mid-west. They came to see me in Leinster House. There is at least two higher education institutions that I am aware of and I am sure Deputy Conway-Walsh is aware of that are currently looking at engaging with the HEA on preparing for en expression of interest for target programmes including veterinary. Again, as I implied in an earlier answer, the line department here is the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine in terms of dealing with vets. We want to work with it.

I believe the Minister, Deputy McConalogue, has been engaging with this group. I would like to meet this group as mediators with the Minister, Deputy McConalogue.

This is a personal view. I am frustrated that, as the Deputy rightly says, every year so many young people leave to go to, I believe, Poland and Hungary to study to become vets. There clearly is a demand from young Irish students to study veterinary medicine. I have also heard from a number of colleagues in the House and from vets themselves that there is a particular shortage of vets for larger animals in rural areas. We are engaging on this. There will be a process involving expressions of interest through the HEA, which is obviously the appropriate channel. They are autonomous institutions and need to express interest. There is considerable activity in this space involving two HEIs in particular.

Chairman

As a vote has been called in the Dáil, I want to close the meeting before we depart for the vote. I call Senator Malcolm Byrne and ask him to be brief.

Senator Malcolm Byrne

I acknowledge the Minister's work on the South East Technological University on which he provided real leadership. I am glad he welcomed the work of Tom Enright on Wexford County Council. Like the Chairman, I know of the Minister's full commitment. I will pose five quick-fire questions, if I may.

Chairman

Very quick.

Senator Malcolm Byrne

They are very quick. The Minister previously indicated including supports for part-time students under SUSI. Has there been progress on that? The Minister knows of the issue with the designation of the National College of Ireland under the Higher Education Authority Act. Has there been any progress? There has been considerable good news this week about UCD's partnership with the European Space Agency. We have developed links to the European Southern Observatory. The Minister will be aware that I had a Commencement matter on our membership of CERN. I ask him at the very least, to commit to doing a cost-benefit analysis on our joining CERN. The issue of health insurance for international students is still stuck with the Department of Justice. I would be grateful if the Minister would intervene on that. My Seanad Electoral (University Members) (Amendment) Bill is back before the Seanad tomorrow. I would appreciate the Minister's support on that specific measure.

Chairman

I will ask the Minister to reply directly to the clerk.

Deputy Simon Harris

The Senator has my full support on that. I think it is really important that we move on that. The working group with Professor Tom Collins is doing work on part-time students. I will talk to NCI. I will come back to the Senator on CERN. I will talk to the Department of Justice.

Senator Malcolm Byrne

I ask the Minister to come back to me on CERN because it is important that we get-----

Deputy Simon Harris

I will come back formally to the committee on where we are at with CERN and the issue of the cost-benefit analysis.

Senator Malcolm Byrne

However, in principle the Minister is in favour of our joining CERN.

Chairman

I thank the Minister and his officials for appearing before the committee this evening. The discussion has been very productive.

The joint committee adjourned at 7.43 p.m. until 11 a.m. on Tuesday, 25 October 2022.