Third Level Education
Dail Éireann — 2026-07-02
============================================================

James Lawless (FF), Kildare North

The short answer is that I have. I engaged with the Irish Universities Association, IUA, as recently as this morning, when I met Paul Johnston, the director general, at an event. I am very aware of the association's asks. It is something that we are working through with it with regard to future funding. There was a commitment through the national training fund to continue to support the core funding allocation for Irish universities. I sat down with the IUA and we reviewed its pre-budget submission, which has a number of worthwhile asks within it. I am continuing to engage with the IUA on a very regular basis, and also with the Technological Universities Association and other stakeholders within the space. I am very much aware of their asks. We have met their funding requirements for the last couple of years through a new framework emerging from, first, the Cassells report and then the Funding the Future study. That funding is now being committed on a multi-annual basis.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-07-02/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:52:14+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-07-02