Sir, – Advising potential US PhD students not to come to Ireland is perhaps an understandable reaction from students who have not been able to secure adequate funding for ever-increasing costs of living (“As PhD researchers this is our advice: avoid Ireland”, Opinion, May 29th). The article, however, contains a number of inaccuracies and omissions about the general conditions of Ireland’s postgraduate research students.
A PhD is the highest academic award a university can grant to a student. It comes with rigorous quality control and assessment. The sense of achievement on graduation is enormous, as are the benefits to the PhD graduate. Embarking on the (four-year plus) journey to obtain a PhD qualification is a very individual choice.
Our supports for PhD students undoubtedly need to improve, but they are among the best in Europe and are far better than those on offer in most US universities, where many “funded” students pay fees or work long hours as graduate teaching assistants. The four years is also an investment long term in their individual earning potential. As the recent HEA report on graduate outcomes has demonstrated, a PhD graduate is earning €815 per week compared with the €655 being earned by a graduate with a master’s degree.
The recent decision by Government and the main funding agencies to increase the PhD stipend to €25,000 per annum was welcome. All universities campaigned for this increase. We need to go further in increasing this base level – on that we all agree.
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However, a direct comparison with the minimum and living-wage levels does not provide the full picture. PhD students do not pay tax or PRSI, unlike minimum wage workers.
In addition, almost every student on the €25,000 stipend also has their tuition fees paid, at a further cost of between €5,000 and €13,000 each year – again a financial support not available to minimum wage workers.
Dublin City University has moved all of our internally funded PhD students on to this new rate of €25,000, plus fees. This was done without additional Government support – at a significant cost to the university, but it is the right thing to do.
The opinion piece suggests that universities seek to attract non-EU research students in order to raise income. Non-EU full-time research students are overwhelmingly on scholarships, where the higher rate of non-EU fee is paid by the research funder or the university, and they do not add significantly to university incomes.
All of the universities have argued that the additional costs for those students, including visa fees, should be covered by funders.
Furthermore, universities do not make a profit from PhD-based research. That research is significantly subsidised from other activity and through fundraising.
Universities are also accused of acting like businesses in “balancing the books”. The Universities Act sets out an obligation in law for each university to run a balanced budget. There are very significant consequences if this is not achieved.
Despite the claim that “many” of our universities are running financial surpluses, even the Government accepts that there is €307 million annual shortfall in public funding.
In the absence of that funding being provided by government, universities have no choice but to seek to raise funds in all sorts of ways – including from business. Seeking external research funding is a key objective for all research-intensive universities.
With regards to the profits made by DCU on-campus accommodation, our on-campus accommodation makes a significant portion of its revenue during the summer months when we charge full commercial rates to conference attendees and visitors to Dublin.
Income from this period goes straight back into the university to help DCU to keep student accommodation rents as affordable as possible for students and their families.
We need to properly fund our PhD students, including the additional costs of visas for international students, as well as increases to the basic stipend. To do that we need a properly funded public university system, and a wider research and innovation ecosystem. That is more urgent than ever in the current geopolitical uncertainty.
Education, research and innovation have been at the heart of Ireland’s social transformation, and will need to be again, as we adapt to the current turmoil. – Yours, etc,
PROF JOHN DOYLE,
Vice-president for Research,
PROF SHARON O’BRIEN,
Dean of Graduate Studies,
Dublin City University
Dublin 9.
Squirrel spotting
Sir, – Frank McNally’s mentioned the common grey squirrel in a recent Irishman’s Diary (Friday, May 30th).
As luck would have it, only a day previously, I was fortunate enough to espy the lesser-spotted red variety scaling a tree in a wooded area in the Farnham Estate in Co Cavan. Moments later, a pine marten crossed my path at speed before disappearing into the undergrowth.
A local woman to whom I recounted this wildlife encounter opined that the noticeable proliferation of red squirrels in the area was almost suggestive of a veritable truce having been declared between the two species.
This state of affairs, she suggested, might be directly related to a corresponding reduction in the numbers of the once-thriving grey variety in the locality.
Pine martens, she believes, are now content to ignore the agile red variety and instead concentrate their predatory instincts on their slightly larger and perhaps less athletic grey cousins. – Yours, etc,
KIERAN FLYNN,
Ballinasloe,
Co Galway.
Death and Gaza
Sir, – As a proud Irish citizen of the European Union, I fear trust in the institutions of government have been irrevocably damaged if not completely eroded over the lack of sanction (or indeed any tangible action) from the EU on Israel’s war in Gaza.
The elephant in the room is that the EU has put US trade relations way above our human rights obligations as a block.
Russia could be immediately sanctioned (rightly so) yet the dithering and feeble posturing over Palestinian slaughter has been embarrassing, infuriating and inhumane. This is not an EU of equals if Germany and Austria, with a few others, get to dictate our response to plausible genocide.
Were we wrong to pass Nice and Lisbon treaties (albeit reluctantly) and dilute our voice in Europe? Have we left the warmongers in charge once more. Has business become our master in chief once and for all?
I am a citizen, not a “consumer”. I live in a country not a “market”.
I respect human life and dignity. Why have the citizens not been heeded? Why should we respect or participate in EU institutions any further when it was all fine words about culture, but in reality nothing more than an offshoot of multinational capitalist enterprise? – Yours, etc,
SEAMUS HUGHES,
Galway.
Sir, – As a citizen of the EU, I would like to know what number of dead we in the Republic should expect to endure if we were being attacked by an outside state before we could anticipate that other countries would intervene to help us with actual action.
It seems that we could look forward to at least 122 000 deaths (adjusting the current death-toll in Gaza for Irish population statistics). Just for context, in 2024 there were around 34,800 deaths registered here.
Not that we need ever worry about being abandoned by the moral countries of the world; their recent track record inspires such confidence and pride.
We would never be considered to have deserved such a fate though – we are, after all, far more human than the Palestinians. – Yours, etc,
MARY MORAN,
Shannon,
Co Clare.
Respecting the national anthem
Sir, – I wish to fully endorse Kevin O’Regan’s letter on the national anthem (Letters, May 29th) and fully support his suggestion of the introduction of a mandatory two-minute pause between the end of the anthem and the start of play in intercounty GAA games.
I have noticed in recent years, especially at intercounty GAA games, a lack of respect for our national anthem. Some players do not stand to attention, and others break away from formation before the completion of the anthem. At a recent match I attended, the singer clearly didn’t know the words, some players didn’t even bother to stand to attention, and all players were breaking formation long before the anthem was finished.
I understand players are anxious to get on with the game, but is one or two minutes going to make any difference to the starting?
Gaelic games are our national games being watched worldwide, our national anthem deserves respect. – Yours, etc,
VINCENT CARROLL,
Dublin.
Sir, – I wholeheartedly agree with your correspondent Kevin O’Regan on the apparent disregard for our national anthem within the GAA.
It is a source of annoyance to see these players performing box-jumps and warming up during the anthem and not one of them actually reciting the words. I have long held the view that it should be compulsory for the players to sing the anthem and stand still to show respect.
Compared to Six Nations rugby and the pride and passion the players show for their anthems, the GAA should hang their heads in shame. – Yours, etc,
MARY LEE,
Newbridge,
Co Kildare.
Sir, – The suggested mandatory two-minute pause between the end of Amhrán na bhFiann and the start of play at GAA matches would not be welcomed by corner forwards. – Yours, etc,
LOMAN Ó LOINGSIGH,
Kiltipper Road,
Dublin 24.
Climate change and fines
Sir, – Ireland generates less than 0.1 per cent of the world’s total greenhouse gas emissions.
We are facing potential fines of up to €20-30 billion if climate targets are not reached by the end of the decade.
Will the same penalties be proportionately applied to the world’s biggest polluters, namely China, India, the United States and Brazil?
If so, then their economies will justifiably collapse.
A level playing field must surely apply. – Yours, etc,
JOHN BURNETT,
Co Cork.
Cycling days gone by
Sir, – I am sure readers of my vintage can recall the centre of Dublin, in places like College Green, being full of bicycles, riding several abreast.
I’ll wager not one of those riders considered him or herself a “cyclist,” or had ever read a cycling magazine. The bicycle was transport, unless you were fairly well to do.
Now, almost all bikes are ridden by enthusiasts. Having paid up to several thousand euro or pounds for their machines, and a tidy sum for helmets, clothing and accessories, they become members of a sort of parallel society, with its own rules and conventions – one of which seems to have a flagrant disregard for traffic lights and pedestrian crossings.
I instinctively dislike extra laws and compulsion, but I feel it would be no bad thing if, as in some other countries, bicycles were registered and displayed a number plate.
Where to mount it on some modern machines is another question. – Yours, etc,
PAUL GRIFFIN,
Liverpool.
