Calls for action on college funding

Radical reforms of how third-level colleges share public investment will have little effect unless the Government decides soon how to deal with a funding crisis in the sector, the experts who designed the reforms have warned.

The additional funding needed by universities and institutes of technology will be as much as €600m a year by 2020, according to the Cassells Report published by Education Minister Richard Bruton in July 2016.

However, he has insisted on awaiting the deliberations of a divided Oireachtas Education Committee.