Hard call on fees likely to be deferred - Report on funding third level

THE Government may not be entirely disappointed that this week’s publication of the latest report on how third level education might be funded probably means that any real — and more than likely very unpopular — decisions on the incendiary issue will fall to the next administration.

Once again a red-line issue been researched, debated, considered and currycombed to something approaching death but ultimately dodged. It has, by timing, been kicked to touch, moving it from the urgent and unavoidable in-basket to the one labelled election policies or, worse, election maybes.

That this evasion, this avoid-the-hard-calls bad habit comes nearly five years after the Hunt report was published again damages political credibility. That the Hunt report — which bravely charted a 20-year strategy before being squeezed onto that infamous dusty shelf — and the latest one on the subject recommend, by and large, the same approach, just adds to that frustration.