CHATTERBOX: RUAIRÍ QUINN AND THAT MORNING IRELAND INTERVIEW ON RTÉ

Well done to the interviewer on Morning Ireland who pointed out that in December the Minister said 80,000 places were needed and today he said 70,000 places. When asked about the missing 10,000 the Minister had no answer and resorted to bluffing and bulls***. – Kerry Blake, thejournal.ie

Ruairí Quinn is sounding flustered and confused over numbers on Morning Ireland this morning, very unlike him. - @kencurtin

Ruairí Quinn completely unbriefed for his interview with Morning Ireland. Car crash stuff and that's being kind. - @LukeMartin_DL

Cathal MacCoille providing ropes and shovels to Ruairí Quinn. He avails generously. – @sinead_ryan

Same bull from FG/Lab/continuity FF. This is not new. Bigger numbers were promised in manifestos. Let's hope it's done and quickly. – John G McGrath, thejournal.ie

No cash to put Chinese on the curriculum. Ask the Chinese government to fund it. It would probably benefit them in the long run. – Keith Maguire, thejournal.ie

Chinese should be taught from primary level. China is already our largest trading partner in Asia, larger than Japan. Clear out Irish. 80,000 speakers or so outside of education and they all speak English anyway. Let us embrace our native language, which is English, as our own. – Paul Carr, The journal.ie

That's ridiculous Paul. Completely ditch one of our native languages in favour of a foreign language the vast majority of us would never ever use. English is the international language of business. – EM, thejournal.ie

The real question is, do the students have any interest in learning it? Not much point in making it available if most students would prefer European languages. – random, thejournal.ie

CAN THE INSTITUTES OF TECHNOLOGY BECOME RESEARCH- ORIENTED UNIVERSITIES?

My understanding was that the RTCs were set up to offer training to technologist level – staff were recruited from industry so that the courses would be more closely aligned to the needs of industry. At some stage, it was decided that they should become ITs and start awarding degrees without the associated academic upgrading of the staff. If we are going to have a technological university, it needs to be just that, no law dept, no arts dept and a focus on high-quality teachers. – wombat, politics.ie

IRISH UNIVERSITIES NOT ON LIST OF TOP 100 REPUTABLE UNIVERSITIES

I'm getting worried here. Where does DIT sit? – Sean Davids, thejournal.ie

DIT? Not at the races. – Tom Kehow, thejournal.ie

Bet they are in the top 10 of best paid staff. – Gavin Tobin, thejournal.ie

Our university salaries wouldn't make the top 50 in the world. And the cap means that we can't compete. – David Hopkins, thejournal.ie