Thirteen of the 14 institutes of technology have yet to submit an application for the gender equality benchmark needed by the end of next year to be eligible for public research funding.

The rapid establishment of technological universities (TU) is not guaranteed by last week’s passing of enabling legislation, the head of the Higher Education Authority (HEA) has cautioned.

A €200m building spend at 11 institutes of technology will create extra spaces for around 8,000 students in state-of-the-art facilities for everything from catering to computer science.