Trinity Faculty Dublin has bucked a pattern of deficits throughout many increased training establishments by recording a surplus of just about €4 million final yr.
However the college says the sector stays below “large strain” from rising prices and underfunded public sector pay will increase. Whereas its annual outcomes have but to be printed, a monetary assertion reflecting a €3.9m surplus has been accepted by Trinity’s board.
Whereas Trinity flagged a projected deficit to the Greater Training Authority final yr, the college’s provost Dr Linda Doyle mentioned it was capable of report a surplus for the 2022/23 yr due to “cautious price administration, elevated earnings and decrease power costs on common than had been anticipated”.
Nevertheless, she warned that the broader increased training sector stays below “large strain” from rising prices.
“The general public service pay agreements, that are very welcome, must be funded from our already tight budgets until the extra help we obtained final yr is repeated,” she mentioned.
Ms Doyle mentioned there was “no escaping the fact” that Authorities must honour the dedication it made to offer annual core funding of €307 million for the upper training sector, made below the then minister for increased training, now Taoiseach, Simon Harris.
“Bridging this hole would give Irish universities the chance to enhance much-needed companies for college kids and workers and produce us according to our worldwide friends,” she mentioned.
The excess for 2022/23 compares to a internet deficit of €200,000 at Trinity within the earlier yr.
Total, universities are projected to run mixed deficits this yr of about €15 million as some schools wrestle to deal with rising prices. About eight publicly funded increased training establishments had been projected to be within the pink final yr primarily based on monetary projections offered to the Greater Training Authority (HEA).
A few of the largest spending considerations are targeted at TU Dublin, College Faculty Cork (UCC) and College of Limerick (UL). All three of those establishments are the topic of scrutiny by the authority after monetary problems with concern got here to gentle over latest months.
Schools say they’re going through price pressures as a result of a number of elements together with rising prices, public sector pay will increase, delayed expenditure linked to the Covid-19 pandemic and rising workers numbers on foot of rising enrolments.
Whereas the Authorities maintains that enough funding has been made obtainable to the upper training sector, universities argue that there’s a hole of between €25-€30 million in what they obtained in State funding versus the actual price of public sector pay will increase.
All establishments working deficits have confirmed that they’ve enough money sources to fulfill their liabilities in full till the tip of this yr.
A lot of the priority throughout the HEA over monetary efficiency pertains to “unplanned” deficits, the place universities unexpectedly discover themselves within the pink.
This was the state of affairs at UCC, for instance, which is known to have flagged considerations with training authorities that it was on track to report a €11.2 million deficit final yr, which was attributed to “rising prices”. It has since launched a cost-containment plan aimed toward containing a deficit this yr to €16 million adopted by a return to a surplus of €2 million subsequent yr.