The Hunt report - Pointing out a roadmap to recovery

NOW that we function as a society only because of the very expensive kindness of strangers debates about access to services that might have once been little more than high-minded public discourse are likely to become the society-defining battlegrounds of the next decade.

Last week the reality of our out-of-kilter, dysfunctional and divisive health-funding policies came home to roost with the realisation that even those prepared to pay for health services on the double, through taxes and through private insurance, might no longer be able to afford the premium that ushered them through the dangerous bottlenecks in our hospitals.

The anger with a system, and a government, that cannot guarantee universal, immediate and reassuring access to health services deepened when tens of thousands of people realised they can no longer afford the insurance cover they feel they need to cope with a fragmented and unreliable system.

Yesterday the long-awaited Hunt Report into education was published and it highlighted very similar issues.

It pointed to a future where, unless we can find huge resources, access and the quality of education provision, just like health, will become huge challenges. Once again the tremendous chasm between our expectations and our ability to pay for them was laid bare.

Hunt concluded that Ireland’s education system needs another €500 million a year to match record student demand and to make Government economic planning a reality. We spend €1.3 billion every year on education.

The report said current funding models were “unsustainable” suggesting that the debate about third-level fees will be revived sooner rather than later. Hunt suggests student fees and the immediate introduction of student loans to ensure access. This may not be socially ideal but the alternative seems even worse. Confronting one of the most contentious issues Hunt suggests tighter regulation — including an assets test — for higher education grant applicants.

It also pointed to the incongruity where third-level resources have to be devoted to students who arrive at college without the skills to avail of the opportunities presented to them. This difficulty might at least be resolved by reform rather than new expenditure.

The report’s conclusions are almost inevitably dispiriting, especially as we spend about a third less than most developed countries on third-level education. It is difficult too to see any dramatic change in that figure in the immediate future.

Many of these issues were already highlighted by the 2004 OECD report on higher education but, almost inevitably again, they have been gathering dust on a shelf since then.

The members of the next cabinet will face the greatest challenges of their careers and the next minister for education will be no exception. Nevertheless, unless that person can find a way to implement at least some of the Hunt proposals our path to recovery might be even more difficult that it already is.

That will mean hard choices and maybe short-term disappointments on education, health and in many other areas if we are ever to get to the point where our expectations can be met by our resources. When we get there, and we will, we will have passed another milestone on the road to recovery.