Adequate funding for the Technical University for the South East (TUSE) is critical, the Minister for Higher Education was told last night.
Speaking in the Dail, Waterford TD Marc O'Cathasaigh said the TUSE project had received €8.1m of the €56m that had been spent on other TU projects; this equates to a 14% share.
The Green Party deputy told Minister Simon Harris the region was not competing on a level playing pitch:
"As a region, the Southeast accounts for 8.9% of the population, but only 5% of the Higher Education income. Of our young people who enter Higher Education, 59% leave the region in order to do so - that's in or around 11,000 students per annum."
He said it was leading not only to "a huge wealth transfer out of the Southeast" but also "a missing generation of 19-45 year olds".
Deputy O'Cathasaigh said that disparity was continuing:
" Since 2018, €56 million has been spent on all TU processes. Minister, of that, the TUSE has only received €8.1 million, or 14%, a lesser share than that allocated to either Dublin, Cork or Galway, all of which are regions with existing universities. And these figures themselves fail to capture historic underinvestment in the Waterford campus, and particularly in terms of built infrastructure, that lags far behind the Higher Ed. capital investment in other regions.
