Horses & Greyhounds Over Universities
Promised third level funding pulled from the budget card
There was a lot to be angry about in Budget 2024.
On last count, there are 3,895 children in homelessness in Ireland and yet Pascal Donohoe saw nothing wrong with saying that “Ireland is one of the best places in the world to be a child”.
The budget allocated a projected €160m in tax reliefs for landlords, but only €88m in tax relief for renters, which admittedly is very on brand for the parties of landlords and developers.
The budget delivered nothing of note for the health service, described by Pearse Doherty as “a standstill budget for Health”.
The creation of sovereign wealth and climate funds would seem like good ideas, if not for the fact that Pascal Donohoe’s fiscal conservatism, offered as a defence against the ghost of austerity and yet imposed on the country for years, has meant much needed investment in infrastructure and public services has been neglected. It’s easy for the government to save money for a fund when they won’t spend it to fix the housing crisis, the homelessness crisis, or the health crisis.
You can’t move for crises.
Take your pick from these and other budget additions to use as frustration fuel, additions that don’t do much more than tap around the fringes of a broken State like Father Ted on Bishop Brennan’s car. My choice from this a lá shite menu is higher education funding.
Back in May, Minister Simon Harris launched a “landmark policy on funding higher education” with the Fund The Future report, which identified a shortfall of €307m in core funding, which he promised to deliver for the higher education sector, a sector he was now responsible for as the newly minted Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science.
Now in fairness to the government, the report states that “the Minister will prioritise this additional investment over a number of budgets”. Despite the years of under-funding of higher education institutions, the numerous calls for sector core funding increases such as the Save Our Spark campaign back in 2018, and most recently the appeal by TCD provost Linda Doyle to pressure the government not to renege on its promised funding, only €60m was allocated in the budget for core higher education funding, 19% of what is needed, bringing the total over two years to 32% funded.
What is the point of a new Department, if its Ministers promise to fix years of structural underfunding, only for those promises to dissolve come budget day?
Now you might say I’m being unreasonable, after all there isn’t enough money to go around, they said, and any surplus that is there shouldn’t be allocated to recurring spending, they said. But then they go and increase the Horse and Greyhound fund to €95m.
Budget 2024 allocated €35m more to greyhound racing and horse racing than it did to higher education. How many times do foreign multinationals extol the quality of Ireland’s greyhounds? Is Ireland the second highest in the EU with 62% of its horses winning races? Multinationals may come for the corporation tax rate but they tell us they stay for the highly skilled graduates. Only Luxembourg has more third level graduates (63%) than Ireland.
This fantastic track record in third level education cannot be maintained if the institutions delivering the education cannot sustain their competitiveness and service increasing student numbers due to inadequate core funding. While the budget did address lots of welcome (and somewhat once-off) cost reductions for students, the view of the Irish times pre-budget on this is even more pointed now:
”However, it is short-sighted to make college more accessible if students are entering under-funded universities.”
- The Irish Times
At today’s department budget press conference, both Ministers summarised the many helpful additions they launched in the budget to reduce the cost burden for students and their families. I have no doubt that Minister Simon Harris is sincere in his commentary that once you start reducing fees, you have to better financially support the system, and when he says “we have to do both in tandem”. Unfortunately it’s easy, and very familiar for Fine Gael recently, to state what should be done, even what they want to do, but when the time comes they don’t end up actually doing it.
Third level education is a multifactor societal enabler, not only providing skilled graduates, but infusing those graduates with self-confidence, critical thinking, ambition, and a sense of belonging, all of which will be critical in immunising the citizenry from the encroachment of far right politics, not to mention dealing with the Climate Emergency or sustaining a prosperous economy.
The Irish Universities Association’s press release called the budget’s failure to meet the promised €307m funding target “frustrating”, so I guess I’m not the only one.
I know a lot of horse-trading takes place when the budget is being decided, but actually putting the horses, and the greyhounds, before universities is not a good run for the money.
A horse-racing mural at Leopardstown racecourse, 2014