Rory O’Donovan
As I sat down to discuss third-level funding with the Minister for Education I asked for ‘tea, two sugars, no fees’ and all of us in the room shared a knowing chuckle. Or in reality, I walked in, shook the Minister’s hand and was offered a seat; straight to business then, I thought, no chuckles.
I was ushered into Ruairi Quinn’s office in the not unspectacular grounds of the department of education and science. Outside, in the impressive square all was in a mid-morning state of tranquillity, but in the Ministry office, the air was thick with deliberation. The time for making budgetary decisions is fast approaching.
Minister Quinn is not new to the budgetary process. Ironically enough, he was Minister for Finance in 1996 when the free-fees system was endorsed and introduced under a coalition government that Labour formed part of. He has made important decisions before, often difficult ones. None will have been as difficult though as the decisions Quinn faces now.
Enforced cuts spanning every department, a huge deficit and funding crises – none more so than in third-level education – mean Quinn in particular has some vital sums to do before December. How this man decides to balance the books, I mused as I got comfortable and produced my notes from my bag, will have a momentous impact on the lives of every student or burgeoning student in this country, for many it could mean the end of their education.
How does the Minister feel about being called a Liar? I asked. I referred to the USI’s latest campaign that saw full page advertisements taken out in two prominent national newspapers. They printed a picture of Quinn alongside the pledge he signed in February, a pledge he has since reneged. The headline was quite simply ‘LIARS’.
‘The word lie is one that I would dispute,’ he responded. Whilst at first he went on to outline that the pledge was signed ‘in the context of the Labour party being in a dominant position in the next government’, his further comments, expressing that, in reality, he and others had ‘no choice but to accept the framework of the agreement that was negotiated with the IMF’ were far more telling. One might have gripe with Quinn’s decisions, but no-one can disagree that the ‘change in landscape’ he depicts has – and will continue to have – a fundamental impact on decisions in every department.
‘We have to reduce expenditure. I have to reduce expenditure in the education system by 9% which amounts to taking out, in real money terms, something in the order of 3.6billion, possibly 3.8billion.’ These figures are frightening. Billions of euro currently being utilised in our education system are to be cut in the upcoming budget, at a time when population numbers in the education sector are growing. Cuts will be made, that is for sure. One thing that remains uncertain though is where the force of these cuts will be felt the hardest, with many predicting that the third-level sector of education will be amongst the hardest hit, with much of the financial burden falling on students.
Quinn spoke of ‘trying to place the burden on those best able to carry it’ and identifying the sectors best able to ‘absorb additional reductions in funding’. What does this mean for third-level students? Are we being identified as those best able to carry this burden? ‘Again there’s a list of options that have been discussed and that are still being discussed. They won’t be easy. This country has lost its economic sovereignty. There is only one place in the world where we can get money at rates that are not uxorious, and the ECB has effectively said yes, we will lend you money so that you can provide the services for nearly a million people in the education system, but as the famous radio and television ads say, terms and conditions apply’.
Amongst the proposals on that list of options is a student-loan scheme, not unlike the system currently functioning in the UK. Quinn suggested that in an interview earlier in the summer he ‘ruled out a loan scheme in the short term’ but ‘it wasn’t necessarily picked up in that particular way’. Is a loan scheme out of the question then? ‘No,’ was the emphatic answer I received, but he underlined that, in the context of the budget, ‘a loan scheme doesn’t give us any comfort at all’.
The loan scheme looks an unlikely option judging Quinn’s sentiments. He suggests notionally that it could be ‘effectively ten years, before a student is working and in a position to start to repay that loan’ which, he affirmed, ‘does nothing for the short-term budgetary position that we’re in’. So what else ‘has been discussed and is still being discussed’? What else is on that list of options?
‘One thing is to limit the number of students going to universities,’ Quinn suggested, which shocked me. I responded by asking whether this would be done by raising the student contribution? Surely this would be entirely contrary to the party-line that emphasises removing barriers to education, not creating them? Quinn clarified by underlining this was a hypothesis separate from fee-paying, a hypothetical scheme that would simply decree ‘UCD and Trinity can only take in x numbers across the board’. Quinn didn’t elaborate on this idea, but the suggestion is a worrying one.
The minister later suggested that ‘the obvious pressure on the school, on the pupil, and on the parents of the pupil … is to get the points’ and that this was an aspect of the interaction between second and third level that needed to be addressed. But surely limiting the number of places available to students in universities would only drive CAO points up, increasing the pressure on leaving cert students?
I asked Quinn whether the original decision to implement a ‘free-fee’ system in 1996 was the right one and his response was a forceful yes. He stressed the importance of the ‘psychological barrier’ it removed, particularly for families who had traditionally ‘never thought their kids would go on to third-level’. Furthermore, he went on to stress that due to certain funding from the EU and the tax arrangements that stood at that time, the decision made financial sense in the creation of a level playing field.
So if we weren’t in the current economic climate, I wondered aloud, would the abolishment of free-fees be on the table? Quinn suggested that it wouldn’t be. He first pointed to the government target of achieving a 72% participation rate in third-level as being a clear objective, before going on to point out that this increase in participation would have to come from socio-economic sections of society that have traditionally had lower participation rates. He highlighted the importance of ensuring that ‘that there would be no serious financial barrier that would prevent a student who is qualified and able to go to college, from going there because of money’. But in the same breath Quinn again underlined that ‘our third-level system has a financing problem. We’re going to have to see how we can address the problem.’
Quinn went on to highlight that ‘universities are part of the problem’ in causing the academic inflation which, coupled with the financial crisis, sees the third-level sector in such a fragile state. He points to the fact that ‘the number of courses that universities have offered has increased 300%’ and that many of these newer courses provide for very small numbers, driving points up. In effect, Quinn suggests that universities, in the provision of increasing numbers of courses are heaping pressure on both the students, in terms of leaving cert points, and themselves, in terms of financing.
I asked the minister whether the protest march planned for November 16th will have any bearing on his final budgetary decision. His response was to first compliment USI on their ability to mobilize students and further to suggest that ‘they’re a more professional organisation than four or five years ago’. ‘Yes,’ he concluded, ‘you can’t ignore that kind of protest and you have to take it into account.’ One wonders to what extent …
What is the minister’s response to Trinity’s provost, Patrick Prendergast, demanding more control over decision-making in Trinity affairs, particularly in making appointments and approving promotions? ‘We are not in normal times. The Provost is looking at it as if we were acting in normal economic times. We are not in control of our own cheque book. The ECB has come in and said these are the terms and conditions on which we will lend you money and one of those terms and conditions is control of numbers in the public service. If we had refused to take the terms and conditions, the ECB would have said well, we’re turning off the tap: Which would mean myself, and anyone else on a public service payroll, when we stick a bit of plastic into the wall, nothing would come out. That’s it. And that’s Greece’s dilemma at the moment.’
So these terms and conditions are affecting appointments and promotions in Irish universities? ‘They are affecting everything. People have to adjust, this just isn’t a once-off hit, this is a permanent hit … until such time as we get our finances back in order. That’s why, in a way, all bets are off from where we were previously. This is the first time we’ve lost our economic sovereignty since 1922. Michael Collins, the first Minister for Finance, had more room for manoeuvre than Michael Noonan has today. And it’ll be like that until 2015.’
I left Ruairi Quinn’s office feeling depressed. The square outside suddenly seemed more bleak than tranquil. As a long-serving member of the Labour party, it would be far-fetched to suggest Quinn actually wants to exclude students from third-level. But he and his colleagues in the cabinet, those making these crucial decisions, have their hands tied by obligations to a debt of a gravity this nation has never seen before. There is a real possibility that measures will be passed that lead to the exclusion of some from the third-level system. Ireland’s students, led by USI, are extremely fearful of what the budget will bring and, on this evidence, they should be. ‘People have to adjust,’ asserted Quinn. Based on his decisions, by Christmas, we’ll know just how much adjusting we have to do.
