The new president of UCC has called for the reintroduction of college tuition fees in order to allow Irish third-level colleges compete on an equal footing with their international competitors.
Dr Michael Murphy said Irish universities are "not going to be able to meet the Government objective of building a world-class third-level system without fees and other new resources. It will prove very difficult for us," he said.
In his first major interview, Dr Murphy said it was not unreasonable to ask those who had secured high levels of disposable income over the past decade to give something back to the third-level education system, which is "so critical for our future".
He also called on the Government to provide more tax breaks for philanthropists and others who wished to contribute to the university system.
The Minister for Education, Mary Hanafin, has said the return of fees is off the political agenda for the "foreseeable future". But pressure to reintroduce fees seems certain to build after this summer's general election.
Four years ago, the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, appeared to accept that those earning over €100,000 should pay fees but proposals for their return - launched by former minister for education Noel Dempsey - failed to muster support around the Cabinet table. Mr Dempsey had envisaged fees averaging €5,000 for most courses.
Dr Murphy praised the "very significant" Government investment in the universities in recent years. But he said the system here was still struggling with a serious infrastructural deficit. Some 50 per cent of the space used for teaching and learning in UCC, for example, was sub-standard.
The university system in Ireland, he said, could not create world-class universities without world-class facilities and resources - despite the excellence of individual academics and departments.
We had done a huge amount in the past decade but we were still way behind our competitors in the way we resourced our universities, he said.
Realistically, he said, Ireland would need 20 more years of economic prosperity before we could compete with the likes of Harvard.
The university system, he said, was dependent to "an unhealthy extent" on State funding but while low taxation levels may have contributed to our economic progress it had also left the colleges without the resources they needed. That was why colleges needed fees and other new resources, he explained.
A UCC graduate and former dean of medicine, Dr Murphy succeeds the controversial Dr Gerry Wrixon.
Yesterday, Dr Murphy acknowledged that UCC had been damaged by recent controversies and he regretted the public airing of internal issues. But it was now time to move on and look to the future, he signalled.
A detailed interview with Dr Murphy will appear in Tuesday's Education Today pages.
