The interview with Minister Quinn and Minister Bruton is here. Last one to leave please turn off the lights.
This is, for some reason, being thought of as a signal of a review of the third level embargo. Perhaps I am just a pessimist but the interview to me did not signal anything like that. It reaffirmed the false pretence that has led to a central state committee being granted absolute control at micro-level for every hire into the university system. I am sorry to keep posting on this and will find a more efficient way of going about this as there is no point in making this forum a casualty of this madness.
Addendum: Could I just be a little stronger here and say that this interview does not tell us anything that was not already present. Richard Bruton was clearly not trying to say anything substantive and looked like he was simply fobbing off the questions so he could get away and deal with other issues. Ruaidhri Quinn somewhat sarcastically indicated a willingness to listen to ideas from the "geniuses" in the university system and there are certainly people who will take him up on his offer but it hardly indicates that a review is taking place. I am, of course, aware that senior university figures are trying to deal with this but I think everybody who has been trying to draw attention to this important issue should continue to do so until something definitive and public is released. There is no evidence that any behind-closed-doors solution has been put together and the idea that people should stay quiet on an issue just because authority figures might be doing something good behind closed doors is not one that has served this country well in the last 10 years. People who care about autonomy in the universities and their vibrancy should look at this and form their own opinion and speak out if they think they should.
12 comments:
Doesn't leave me with a warm glow feeling either & the pensions argument looks feeble to me.
The pensions is real in itself but a feeble reason to hand over so much extra authority to the HEA. As partly alluded to in the interview, this is probably being renegotiated but what may come after may not be much better.
The people who might be hired in these contracts are mostly young. So even if there are associated pension liabilities, they are not going to be drawn down for maybe 30 years.
So why should this be a big deal?
The sentiment I got from the clip is that the Ministers want to correct the issue. The invitation for ideas is interesting and seems reasonable; given that this is a policy arising, as I understand it, from a need to appease IMF/EU. And not really a tug-of-war for power/autonomy.
So to look at solutions: why not offer new contract-researchers a defined contribution pension? perhaps a 'soft-mandatory' one - this could be a first edition of the ones planned for the private sector.
I would wager that the 'preserved-benefit' of pensions from short-term contracts are not significantly greater than the expected benefits from a private one; especially if the private one were to also include the amounts paid by employees for PRD.
And, arguably, a private pension could be of greater instrumental value to a young person in the sense that it is theirs after their employment stint any thus could potentially be instrumentally helpful in securing a mortgage, or a business loan.
Agree with the basic aspect of your solution Peter and things like this have been widely proposed.
I do not read anything from that interview other than two ministers collared outside a meeting who made stuff up. Anybody saying this represents a major change (as a lot of people are telling me) is just wrong. I know you are not suggesting this Peter but a lot of people are and they are misguided.
by the way Peter this has nothing go to do with IMF. They would absolutely hate a micro-managed solution like this. This doesn't save money so it has no implications for them. They should be outraged that their name is being thrown around here as they have acted honourably in Ireland and should not be blamed for mad behaviour on behalf of our policymakers.
At the moment the IMF-EU review our Pay & Pensions Bill quarterly.
Dont want to get distracted on this Peter because I agree with your main approach on this but I have to be clear to you that the IMF would not in any, way, shape or form support a state agency being given full micro-control of all hiring in the university system of a country to which it is giving a loan. It would certainly not make this a condition of the loan. This policy does not save money in that sense. If this issue is really about the pension liabilities from contract researchers (which in a sense might have something to do with the IMF) then it could be dealt with through devising a pension for contract researchers and there are many models to do this. It could also be dealt with by insisting that pension costs be billed into grants. The wider set of controls and quotas put into this framework really goes massively against the type of reforms IMF generally try to push in countries. The IMF have, as I said, acted honorably in Ireland and should not be blamed for what is a domestic policy blunder.
OK. I leave you to fight on. But, to be clear, I didn't suggest the employment framework was an IMF policy. And I have no issues with the IMFs management of the crisis here.
Ok Peter, let me interpret your point as saying the need for a policy arises from the fact that we are in desparate financial waters and need to reduce state liabilities. I think that is a fair way of phrasing your point. The argument many of us are making is that this policy makes things worse but cutting off a key funding stream and imposes controls that really have nothing to do with revenue control. If you really wanted to get into implementing IMF rules, the government made a commitment to implement the McCarthy Report which argues that money should be saved by abolishing the HEA not giving it HSE-like allocation powers. Personally, I am entirely ambivalent about the HEA. There are other countries that have a similar system and there is nothing wrong with the system per se. It only becomes wrong when the regulator and the universities end up where we seem to be now, in some sort of weird zero-sum game.
I don't know anyone, nor have I heard from anyone, who thinks the new ECF is appropriate for higher education. Its not. It runs contrary to vital objectives stated elsewhere. I think its clear that they mucked up on this and are going to review it. This is my view.
The ministers have identified 'pension liabilities' as the issue and have asked for suggestions from the universities on how to resolve it. It seems reasonable that we would discuss some alternatives so that the necessary changes can be made.
Ok, definitely agree with everything on that Peter. Apologies if I picked you up wrong on the IMF stuff. A lot of the commentary has been using the IMF name as if it justified burning colleges to save money. I definitely agree with you that looking at different pension models will be an important component of the response to this.
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