The Conference of Heads of Irish Universities (CHIU) presented its own National Plan submission back in June. That report argues for an annual investment in infrastructure of £215 million and an investment of £134 million annually in research, skills supply, social inclusion and lifelong learning programmes.

The universities also plan to increase their intake. "As a minimum target, 50 per cent of every social cohort should have access to tertiary education, in contrast to the present participation rates of 19 per cent for socio-economic group A and 13 per cent for socio-economic group C," the report states.

CHIU argues in favour of increasing the ratio of postgraduate to undergraduate students from the present ratio of 1:10 to 1:5 by the year 2010. This would involve the creation of 2,000 extra postgraduate research places. The report notes that public spending on third level research is far to low, at 0.25 per cent of GDP, and should be increased to at least 0.5 per cent if Ireland is to keep in line with competitor countries.