I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time. When I introduced this Bill I gave, on the suggestion of Deputy Mulcahy, a brief explanation of its purpose. I take it that it is not necessary for me to travel over the same ground again.
Institute for Advanced Studies Bill, 1939—Second Stage.
Oh, please!
It is all on record.
I submit to the Taoiseach that what really is on record is a protest against the Bill in the absence of a very full explanation.
However, if you are prepared to listen I am prepared to talk. On that occasion I pointed out that, from the point of view of Celtic studies, we were in a very peculiar position. At the moment we have the leadership of the Celtic nations in so far as we alone of these have a government which can foster, with special interest, the prosecution of such studies. I pointed out that our national policy of reviving the language imposed a special duty upon us: that there was a vast quantity of material relating to early modern Irish which had not been properly edited or even properly examined, and that the publication of that material, after careful editing over a period of years, would be of the greatest possible advantage to the present-day spoken language and would enrich it in every way. Now, that mass of material would want to be worked over according to a definite plan under expert direction. That would take a number of years. The work could not possibly be carried out by the universities, because it is of a different character from the work on which they are engaged. Neither could it be carried out very well by the Royal Irish Academy because, for the most part, that is an institution that was intended to provide a forum for scientists of various kinds who would come together from time to time and acquaint each other of the results of the research work which they have been able to do, and to afford them an opportunity for discussions at comparatively infrequent intervals, whereas the editing of this material, the working through it, would require the day to day constant effort of a number of workers engaged, as I have said, under expert direction.
That work alone would justify the establishment of the institute, but it seemed to me that there were other branches of knowledge, other directions, in which we could also play our part. A century or two ago an institute for advanced learning, such as is proposed here, would have been regarded as needless duplication. That work would have been regarded as the proper work for the universities because at that time precisely the advancement, encouragement and fostering of advanced studies was the peculiar work of the universities. The universities of the present day have a very different task. The advancement of knowledge in these later centuries has been so rapid that in order to keep up with the advances made even in a very narrow branch during the lifetime of an individual he would have to give his whole time to it. The universities, therefore, if they wanted to perform that task, would really need to have two separate branches, because the man who had to keep abreast of the knowledge that had been achieved up to that particular time would have to give his whole time to that without any question of teaching.
But, in the case of the modern universities, the greater part of the time of the professors and lecturers has to be devoted to teaching. At one time I thought it might be a very useful thing if we were to have two parts in our universities: one for teaching, and the other mainly for advanced research work, but then the cost of that to the community would be far greater than what is proposed here under this system. In fact, what is proposed here is an addition to the work which is being done in universities; but, by doing it in this way, it can be done more effectively and more economically than it could be if you were to divide the various university colleges into two sections, putting in one a number of research professors and in the other a number of teachers and lecturers. The universities, on account of the complexity of modern life, have to devote most of their time to preparing students, making them fit for the part which each one will have to play in life. If you want to get a picture of the situation, imagine a young man of 17 or 18 years of age coming to the university to prepare for the medical profession. The course for the medical profession extends now, I think, to seven years, so that he has to spend that period in intensive work on his own particular profession, trying to acquire the knowledge which is necessary for him if he is to bring to the service of the community the knowledge which has already been gained. That is intensive work, and by the time it is finished, if he wants to live a normal life at all, he would expect to have left the school period and to be able to support himself by work in his profession.
Now, if you do not want to extend what I may call the school age until a man is middle-aged, there is a time limit beyond which you cannot go. Consequently, most of the time in the universities is spent in training men for the different professions, even for business and farming. If you want to do farming in the best way you have got to get special instruction. In the National University, for example, we have a section which is devoted to agriculture. All these branches require intensive training, both in the acquiring of the necessary knowledge and in the practice of it. there is then a limit to the number of years that can be spent in that way. It is very important that the universities devote themselves to arranging a programme by which, in the shortest time, a person can arrive at the stage in which he is reasonably fit to enter into a profession to earn his livelihood and live a normal life. With that pressure it is quite obvious that very little research work of a proper kind could be done. By research work I mean exploring new fields and advancing the frontiers of knowledge. To do that, one requires, first of all, men who can devote themselves exclusively to it, keeping themselves abreast of the knowledge of the time, and students of special ability who can be trained to succeed such men.
The need for such an institute as is proposed here has been felt in practically every country in the world. Side by side with all the universities, in most countries, you will find an institute of this kind. You will find it in the great and in the small nations. In Denmark there is a number of them. Some can afford to go in for a type of institute which requires elaborate and expensive equipment. The smaller countries cannot very well do that. In any work which we may do for the advancement of knowledge generally, we will have to bear in mind what the resources of our people are and what it is possible for us to do. For example, there would be no point in our trying to compete with other countries in some modern work in experimental physics because the equipment that would be required would be too expensive.
We may be able to do a certain amount in that direction but we could not hope in that way to be amongst the nations that would advance knowledge. In the same way our circumstances, for example, would not fit us to hope to make very much advance in observational astronomy. We might work on the basis of the observations of other countries that are situated more favourably from the point of view of climate and atmosphere and so on, as well as resources, but we could not hope to do much work from the observational side, though we might on the theoretical. The universities as they are at present organised cannot be depended upon to do the work of advanced knowledge and to prepare research workers of an advanced type. The type of student who might come to an institute of this sort would be a student such as in the National University would get a travelling scholarship. He must certainly be of first-rate ability and he would have to have done a preparatory course equivalent to securing a M.A. degree. That is why we have a special reason for having such an institute as is proposed, for Celtic studies.
Hear, hear.
In regard to theoretical physics, which is the second school proposed, I felt that we had a remarkable tradition in that particular branch and that it was a branch of pure science that we could pursue without comparatively heavy expense.
No better than any other country.
I doubt that. For example, it would be much more costly in the case of experimental physics. Apart from the tradition, we have the fact that all you want for theoretical physics is to pay the professors.
For agricultural science.
In philosophy we have got a number of schools that pursue philosophical studies. There is not a single branch for which you could not make a case. Once the framework of the organisation is provided, if it is desired to include additional schools, that can be done.
Why take out mathematical science now except for the purpose of throwing in the apple of discord?
There is no apple of discord at all. We have an opportunity, as I pointed out on the last day, of having here one of the greatest mathematical physics schools in the world. There were available at the time I produced this Bill, three men who could have been kept here as professors of mathematical physics whose names and whose reputation were world wide. If at some other time at as little expense you could establish a position for other sciences, that could be done if there was a reason for it. But when we get an opportunity such as we have got in the case of theoretical physics it is right to take it, and, as I said, we have a tradition in the case of theoretical physics.
As a matter of fact in the earlier half of the 19th century and going over the first half of the century, we had some of the greatest mathematicians in the world, Irishmen. There is one name that occurs to everybody, and that is Hamilton. As a matter of fact if I want to go into the history of this idea it was the fact that Dunsink seemed to be available for the nation that turned me to consider this matter in the first instance. Hamilton's reputation in the 19th century was recognised as being great. He was the foremost mathematician and his fame is increasing because the most recent developments of mathematical physics are going back and are based on some of the principles be enunciated. We had also men like McCullagh and Fitzgerald and, besides, men who did not spend their lives here but who were Irish. We had Stokes and Thompson. I believe this study is peculiarly suited to Irishmen.
Having an opportunity of getting outstanding men to accept the professorial chairs it seemed to me to be a very good beginning and a beginning that ought to be made here in regard to the sciences in addition to setting up a school of Celtic studies. The scheme of the institution was very simple. It was designed to give each school that might be founded the greatest amount of autonomy that was possible. Professors ought to be able to know the work which is required and then you associate with the actual professors an equal number as proposed here—an equal number will be appointed by the President on the advice of the Government. These will be interested in the particular branch of studies to which the school devotes itself. You will have an assurance, if the appointment is reasonably made, that the school will look after the work which is given to it to look after, and do so with proper care. Those who would not know the subjects as well as the governing board, might very well prevent the best work being done. Research work in any case is work which very often is merely haphazard. No man can feel certain when a promising vein is opened up for pursuit that the wealth that was thought to be in it will be found in it. There are many failures and accidents apparently determining whether a piece of work is to prove valuable or not. You cannot organise it and develop it in the way in which you can direct and plan a military operation. You have to make up your mind that the work of the school will depend on the character of the professors and on their ability. It is intended, therefore, to leave to the schools their own government as far as possible, and it is proposed to relieve them of any business cares in regard to what I might call the administration of the school—except the actual research work itself. That is to be done in the main by a council which will be a common council for all the schools. On that council it is proposed that there should be two representatives from each school, and the general business administration will be carried out by the council. Of course, if there were a matter which affected a school, the school would make its request and nothing would be done by the council without consultation with the governing board of the school.
I think it is not in the draft as it is, but it is to be provided that, in case of any difference arising between the governing board of a school and the administrative council of the institute, there should be an appeal to the Minister, who in all this is the Minister for Education. Of the two representatives of each school it is proposed that one should be an "appointed member" of the governing board of the school. The council will be a responsible corporate body for all agreements, for all legal commitments that have to be made by the institute as a whole. The senior professors in the schools will be appointed by the President on the advice of the Government and the assistants that might be required in the various schools will be appointed by the council on the recommendation of the schools in question. The expenses of the schools will be met by grants voted by the Oireachtas, and the accounts will be audited by the Comptroller and Auditor-General and presented to Parliament in the usual way.
In the main, I think, that gives the skeleton of the organisation. The Bill is, of necessity, fairly detailed and can be discussed in detail in Committee. The principle is not unlike the principle which you have, for example, in the National University, where you have a number of colleges, each with its own governing body, but to a large extent ruling itself. A certain amount of necessary uniformity is introduced through the controlling power of the Senate. In the same way here, though the schools will be largely autonomous, in so far as co-ordination is required it is secured through the council. The value of having the institute and not separate schools lies in the fact that the prestige of each school will be affected by the work done by some of the other schools in the institute. For example, if the school of theoretical physics became known, it would become known not merely as the school of theoretical physics, but its work would be recognised as work done by the Dublin Institute. The value, therefore, of having an institute with separate schools, must, I think, be apparent to everybody. You have the co-ordination, the simplicity of administration, the economy which could be effected and then, as I have indicated, the fact that each school will reflect a certain amount of credit on the other schools as long as they are associated with one institute. It may happen that Deputies may have some questions to ask that I will be able to reply to at the end, or even before the end of the debate, but I think I have given sufficient information to the House to enable it to understand generally the nature of the Bill and the reasons for it.
I regret that, in discussing such high subjects as Celtic studies, geophysics and cosmology, my mind should start off and run along the lines of the language of the films. The scheme proposed here, and I might say the object proposed here, in so far as we see in this Bill or from the explanation of the Taoiseach either before or now, makes me unfortunately characterise this whole scheme as a higher humbug production in the language of the films. It gives you a feeling that we are having a kind of modern saints-and-scholars touch. We all flatter ourselves that in the past we were an island of saints and scholars and that we held the lamp of civilisation aloft in Europe and kept Christianity alive when there was nobody else to look after it. We can see the evidence that that was done, but we give no consideration to what exactly were the circumstances here that enabled the thing to be done and why it was done.
Here we are proposing to set up a higher learning institute and are proposing to have a school of advanced Celtic studies and a scheme of advanced theoretical physics for a start off. All we are told with regard to the theoretical physics school by the Taoiseach is that we could have three people who are world famous if we had this a little while ago, but he does not tell us who they were. So far as we can understand, that was the only stimulus to starting a school of theoretical physics here. But from what are we going to progress in trying to advance the frontiers of known knowledge in the world in respect of theoretical physics or anything in that particular line if we are not going to advance from a people that, at any rate, have a sound mathematical education?
What is our position at the present time? I have already pointed out that year after year there is increased dissatisfaction with the position of mathematics in the primary schools. Last year we embarked on a position in our secondary schools, by which a girl can leave them without ever sitting in a mathematics class during the secondary school period, or ever having sat for a mathematical examination. A boy can leave the secondary schools without ever sitting for a mathematical examination either for the intermediate or for the leaving certificate. All that is required is that during the period he is attached to the intermediate class he attends a mathematical class, but he need never sit for an examination, and it is on a foundation like that that we are setting up, with a very inadequate explanation, machinery to which public money is to be devoted in order to advance the frontier as regards theoretical physics. The Taoiseach referred to the McCullaghs and the Hamiltons, but there are people called Pat Murphys. We are descending to the Pat Murphy argument now. It is necessary to do so.
When dealing with the position of mathematics in the secondary schools on the Vote for Education last year I drew attention to evidence that was given before the Primary Education Conference by the Professor of the Theory and Practice of Education in the National University as to what the position should be, and what it was in the past. He showed that the achievements of our people in the middle of the 18th century were due to the mathematical grip they had as a result of good mathematics. I will quote what I said from column 2175 of the Official Debates of March 16th, 1939:—
"The intellectual quality of the average Irish farm labourer and the small farmer from 1775 to 1850 was ahead of the world, and in consequence they were able to take concerted action of a public character that no other people in the world at the time were even able to think of. It was largely developed by the presence in the country of a vast number of efficient mathematical teachers always called ‘mathematicians' even in print."
So if we had our Hamiltons and our McCullaghs they were the flower of people who could be described in these particular terms. It was pointed out by Dr. Corcoran in the same evidence that from 1900 the position of mathematics here deteriorated. While the teaching of mathematics was higher than the National Board required, the lowering of the standard injured the teaching capacity of the teachers from 1900. We did not fall as far as we fell last year when we wiped out mathematics as a compulsory subject for the intermediate and leaving certificate in the secondary schools. That is why I call this side of the advanced learning programme humbug. On the side of the School of Celtic Studies the Taoiseach indicated that there is a large mass of early modern Irish stuff that has to be edited and printed, and that may have an important effect on the spoken use of the language at the present time. Would the Taoiseach give us some information as to what exactly requires to be done? Will he tell us what percentage of the early modern Irish stuff available has been already printed, and to what extent it is influencing in any way the situation at the present time? I see a request here from the Government for power to set up schools of advanced Irish learning, when on some of the most vital and focal points on our own front, there is a complete disinclination to examine the situation.
I have repeatedly pointed out that students entering the university from secondary schools are a fair sample of the linguistic capacity being attained in the secondary schools by children educated either through the medium of Irish or with very good instruction in Irish. I have repeatedly asked the Minister for Education to have a system of serious conferences between those handling the material on the Irish side of the universities and those responsible for it in the Department of Education. He has systematically declined to have any system of conferences of that particular kind. In fact, the work done in the secondary schools the Department almost entirely declined to examine in a systematic way. I think excellent work is being done. No praise could be too great for the various classes of people, both in the primary and the secondary schools, who are working to get here an Irish-speaking population, that may and can, if properly looked after, flower into deeper and higher Irish studies. The whole situation on focal points has been completely neglected.
In the Estimates for the present year the situation in respect of secondary schools can be judged by this, that £8,500 less is being paid for special fees; for the publication of texts for secondary schools there is a reduction of £1,500; and for the publication of Irish texts for the Gúm there is a deduction of £4,500. In the preparatory colleges, which were in fact the only machinery offering secondary education to the products of the Irish-speaking schools in the really Irish-speaking districts, there is a reduction of £4,313. For children educated in Irish-speaking districts and in primary schools the only hope they had, to a large extent, of getting secondary education was by passing into the preparatory colleges. The amount of money provided for that purpose now is £4,313 less than last year. The Folklore Commission, which is doing valuable work, certainly within the terms of what is suggested here for the higher learning side, is being cut £600. For children going to the Gaeltacht the grant is reduced by £500. For the facsimile reproduction of ancient manuscripts there is a reduction of £75.
You have this situation that reductions are being made in every grant that in my opinion is vital for saving the Irish language. Scrutiny is definnitely neglected in spite of the fact that appeals were made to have it done much more carefully. We are asked to do this without being given any explanation I might say, except that there is a mass of material that requires a large number of people to work on it systematically and continuously. Either the subjects in the secondary schools are or are not of importance for the Irish language movement. If they are then the Taoiseach ought to treat this in a more systematic way. He is addressing both here and in the country people who are interested in holding and maintaining the Irish language. It means very little to some, but it amounts to this, whether we are to retain the fragrance either of civilisation or of learning that comes from the old manuscripts. It means very little whether we retain that fragrance if we do not systematically and thoroughly deal with the work of preserving Irish as a living language. The more seriously we take our responsibilities in respect of maintaining the living language that is there the better, rather than joining whatever band of advanced workers there are, even in the line of Irish learning, to extend unknown knowledge on these things. I think both the method and the explanation given are entirely at variance with the reduction of the amount of money spent in certain focal directions at the present time, and is due to the neglect of scrutiny of important spheres of Irish language development that has been asked for and refused for some years past.
There is another aspect of this question which strikes me. The universities are being relegated to an entirely different sphere. The Taoiseach indicated that the universities are now going to be something that they were not in the past. I certainly feel, with the reduction in the standard of mathematics in the secondary schools, and the likely effect of the inadequacy of the standard of mathematics in primary schools, that more and more the universities tend to be reduced to the secondary schools level. Such as they are at the present time and such as they will continue to be, there are Irish faculties in the universities. In the National University, there are at least two persons who have no responsibility for the giving of lectures. One member of the staff of the National University is definitely a research professor. You have the Dublin College of the National University, the Cork College and the Galway College; you have Trinity College, the Royal Irish Academy, the Folklore Commission and the Historical Manuscripts Commission. Surely, when the Dáil is being asked to set up a new college which will have its governing board, its professors, visiting professors, assitants and other academic staff, we ought to be told what is going to be done there that is not being done in the five or six institutions I have mentioned.
The Taoiseach has not indicated who is responsible for this idea. We do know that the change in the mathematical programme in secondary schools was brought into operation last year without the Professor of Education in the National University being consulted about it. Who was consulted about this proposal? Have the principal people working on research in either the National University or Trinity College, or have the authorities of the Royal Irish Academy been consulted about it? Is the folklore grant being reduced by £600 because the work is going to be done in this institute? The whole business seems to be a sort of detached idea which is absurdly presented here if it is supposed to be a matter of importance and if it is going to ensure the progress of Irish studies in the universities. I cannot imagine anything that would lower the standard of higher Irish studies in the universities more than the taking of research work away from these bodies. My objection to this Bill is based on the ground that you cannot have McCullaghs and Hamiltons in a country where you have not the Pat Murphys, that you cannot have higher mathematic studies worth anything except the ground where the Irish language is being held and extended as a living language is thoroughly looked after, supervised and developed in every possible way. In the present state of thought and having regard to the organisation of our universities here, you are simply reducing their status and standard by taking some of these higher studies away from them.
I welcome this Bill. I entirely sympathise with Deputy Mulcahy when he points out that no Bills, no institutes, and no pious hopes will achieve the purposes that an institute of this kind should have in mind if the educational foundations of the people as a whole are not sound. I gladly echo what he said here to-day, that there is no evidence that adequate thought is being given to these foundations but I am, perhaps, not as wise as he is, in that I am a little more optimistic. I take this Bill at its face value and, on the Estimates for Secondary and Primary Education, I propose to bring this Minister to book for his gross neglect of the foundations on which this institute must ultimately rest. I do not despair, after five years battering at his colleague, of reforming him, as the shooting of Clanricarde's bailiff was wrongly intended to reform Clanricarde. Clanricarde was not, of course, intimidated by having his bailiff shot, but I think the Taoiseach has been considerably intimidated by the repeated assassination of his ex-Minister for Education and I hope to see reform in the years that lie ahead.
Those of us who have been brought up in rural Ireland must always have been struck by the reverence of our people for learning. No sounder instinct ever inspired a people. It is often carried to imprudent extremes and a reverence is paid to a B.A. which would be more properly offered to a prudent man who had no fictitious title upon which to depend. But, in these times when barbarism stalks the world, glories in its resolve to quench the light of knowledge and to prohibit intelligent inquiry and claims that the loftiest duty of a liberated nation is to stamp on all knowledge and education that does not wear a brown shirt, it is a source of peculiar satisfaction to me that we, in this country, should be exerting ourselves to widen knowledge, to encourage inquiry and to make available to a wider and wider section of our people the benefits of a more and more liberal education.
Before I get down to the work that lies ahead, I want to register this protest. It was a mischievous and silly thing for the Taoiseach to inject into this initial proposal mathematical physics. The time has come for plain speaking, because that mischievous folly has, in my opinion, contributed to whatever discord may arise in connection with this proposal. The proposal is incorporated in this Bill for one, and one only, silly, childish purpose, and that is to lend verisimilitude to the myth that the Taoiseach is a great mathematician, which he never was and never will be. He is a man who takes an interest in mathematics, but there are thousands of decent secondary teachers who were his colleagues before he entered politics, and who are as good mathematicians as he is—and there are hundreds of them far better. But the myth has to be created in the world that in Ireland we have a scholar Prime Minister and that, in pursuit of the age-old passion that has inflamed his heart for pure science and truth, he could not resist the chance of conferring the reflected glory of his learning on the rising generation of the Irish people. That is all cod, and we in Ireland know it is cod, but there will be articles published in the Melbourne Argus, the Irish World, the San Francisco Leader, and they may even get into Life or Time under the heading of “The Scholar T.D.”
In order to get that silly little bit of kudos, he has injected into this otherwise admirable scheme a lot of extraneous matter which, on the face of it, is ludicrous and gives colour to the argument of those who would attack the whole scheme as unjustifiable expenditure in the present state of the country. People will say: "What, in the name of God, do you want to be setting up an institute in Dublin for, to add up two and two?" I think they would be right in taking up that line. There is no more reason why we should embark on the fostering of higher study in mathematical physics than, for instance, in philosophy. Indeed, you could make a better case in respect of the higher study of philosophy. You might say that our people are speculatively minded people, people who would attach more importance to the things of the spirit than they would to material things, and one might hold that there was a better future in a country like this for metaphysics and speculation, that those potentialities of our people should be canalised and that they should be given an opportunity for coming in contact with the best brains in the world, many of whom are now refugees from one country or another, flying from the German barbarians who are driving them out. We could provide them with a refuge here and allow our people to react to their instruction.
You might, again, have made a great case for establishing a school of agricultural science and agricultural statistics, similar to the Rome institute, on the ground that, being almost exclusively an agricultural country, it would be a fitting thing that we would have an institute here that would draw to it students from all parts of the world, and scholars from all parts of the world, as Rome is doing at the present time. You might have made a case for medicine on the ground that we were greatly beholden to the world for the immense sums of money that have poured in here, earmarked for the purpose of building hospitals for our poor. In return for that we would seek to contribute something to the pool of human knowledge by putting medical research on a peculiarly advantageous basis here and attempt the conquest of some particular disease or branch of disease as some kind of thanksgiving to our neighbours the world over who have helped us to cure our own sick and tend our afflicted.
So far as mathematical physics is concerned, no one is going to deny that it is a very desirable and interesting sphere of human knowledge. We talk about Hamilton or the Thompsons, and we can find names of Irishmen of perhaps greater distinction in almost every branch of learning and achievement in the history of the world. Theirs are names that we look back on with pride, and rightly so, but I do not think it is any more desirable to invoke them in the case of mathematical physics or any other course of study than to invoke the name of Sam Adams, when everyone else was thinking of John Adams. I am sorry the Taoiseach has done it. I asked one of his colleagues two months ago to bring a message back to him to drop this specific proposal for a school of mathematical physics and to leave the power which is in the Bill to initiate this school later on if it became desirable. But the Taoiseach would not do that, because to do it would be to admit that de Valera had made a mistake — and, of course, de Valera has never made a mistake. To suggest to him that it would be expedient to take something out of the draft Bill, something that he put in—that was heresy; that was revolution. Therefore, you have to ram it through; you have to get the scholars who are sitting behind him to give their support. He will march them into the Lobby in defence of mathematical physics, and perhaps not three of them will know what mathematical physics is, much less what it is going to be.
I deplore all that. I think it is a great mistake and I think it confuses the issue which confronts us. So far as research and higher learning in Celtic studies are concerned, I think that is appropriate. I think the idea is good, and any money which I can reasonably foresee will be spent on a proposal of this kind will be money well spent. Deputy Mulcahy has truly said that the primary concern at this time for most of us is the preservation of the Irish language as a living language. I entirely agree, and if there was any conflict of interest between higher learning in Celtic studies and the preservation of the language as a living language, then by all means I would choose the living language and let the higher learning await a later day. But I do not think there is any conflict. I do not think the living language can be a living language if you allow its roots to die. I believe a language is a thing which belongs to no special day; it belongs to history and the more you can know and bring to light its history, its origin, its sources, its associations with other languages, the more firmly you protect the living body of the language itself.
I do not think that the Celtic research that has been done in this country to date reflects much credit on the scholars who are charged with it. It is an astonishing thing to discover that in Celtic studies there has probably been more fertile work forthcoming from Germany, France and the United States of America than has been forthcoming from this country. Now, that may have been due to the lack of endowment, and I think perhaps it was in part at least, but what we have got to open our eyes to is this fact: that in the past, in the decades gone by when other nations were building up their immense stores of learning and achievement, there was a different social order. You had in England in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries immensely wealthy families who gloried in their ability to endow learning, and whose families acquired a certain reflected glory from the learning that emerged from the institutions with which their names were associated. In this country we have not any great accumulations of wealth of that kind. There are no endowments here to maintain an Oxford or a Cambridge or an institution of that kind. There are no endowments here on which to found a College de France or one of the endowed institutions of the French Republic. Are we to make up our minds that we are to forego for ever that kind of work, or are we boldly to announce that, inasmuch as the social order has changed and abolished the old sources of endowment, we will enact a new social order, and provide for the community as a whole, in which there are very few rich individuals, endowments which will endow learning in this country in the time to come? I think that is what this Bill is doing. I think this Bill is doing for higher learning in Celtic studies what the dukes and the marquises and the big landowners in England and France did for learning in another day. In so far as the Bill proposes to do that, I think it is doing well. I think that it holds out hope for good work in the time to come.
Now, it would ill-become me to be a critic of the universities. I do not profess to be an authority on education, but for good or ill the people have sent me here as their representative, and I suppose I know as much about the problem as most of the people who voted for me. Speaking for them, and from their point of view, it does appear to me that inevitably the functions of great State universities such as we have in this country and such as are ubiquitous in the United States of America, must be something slightly different from the old academic schools of the older universities of Europe. You cannot operate an institution which caters for thousands of students, the bulk of whom are looking for moneyearning professions within their walls, on the same lines as you would operate the academic institutions, the vernacular of which was Latin and no Don of which was ever to get married so long as he remained a Don of the institution. The atmosphere, the aims and the whole trend of the work in them was different. In the one the people who were elected led a semi-monastic life, and deliberately chose a pseudo archaic mode of expression that indicated their complete detachment from the material things of the current life around them. Their whole outlook was towards pure knowledge without any regard to the material considerations at all. Who is going to say that that is going to be the atmosphere of such a university in this country or in any other country in the world? Who has ever stood in the State universities of Australia or the United States and pretended for a moment that such was their atmosphere? Of course it is not, and it cannot be.
I think some effort is being made in that direction in Galway, but I do not think it is succeeding. I think the bulk of the students in Galway make it perfectly clear that, much as they venerate learning, their immediate purpose in going to Galway University is to get a job when they leave it. Either the academic staffs of those establishments are going to tell the students to go elsewhere or else they are going to give the students that for which the students have come to college, and out of that dilemma I see no escape except along the lines broadly indicated in this departure. Now, let nobody doubt that the money to be expended upon this departure will be deplored by many people who will think that it is money wasted. In so far as it is being spent on higher Celtic studies, I think it should be defended. It can easily be attacked, particularly in these times of stringency and difficulty, but it ought to be defended in my judgment. The difficulty of its defence is increased ten thousand fold by this grotesque annexe of metaphysical physics. I do not believe that there is a Deputy in this House, with the exception of the Taoiseach, who has the slightest desire to preserve that annexe in the Bill.
When we come to the question of research professorships we ought to ponder, because although I hope to see the institute rendered as autonomous as it is possible to make it, it is right to say that if every facility is made available, and if every difficulty is swept away, those responsible for the endowment are entitled to see some results. I know that I will bring a deluge on my head for what I am about to say, but, nevertheless, I am going to say it. It is this: that our limited experience in research professorships to date does not give us much ground for hope that they will produce very abundant fruits, certainly by way of published work which anybody can see, or which redounds to the credit of the institutions in which research professorships have been established. Nobody wants to demand of scholars that they should grind out a certain quantity of published work ever so often, but I think we should consider whether some standard should not be set whereby we may judge the success of this departure. How much published work may we reasonably expect to see? I think it is true to say that in regard to certain scholars research endowments seem to induce a period of hibernation during which they engage in no activity but in the examination of other men's work in order to demonstrate that the other men are wrong. Now, I am afraid that is true, and it is peculiarly true of Celtic scholars. The atmosphere of hysteria that prevails after any fragment of research in Celtic studies has been published is pathetic to witness. It is not anxiety lest the work should be generally appreciated, but it is anxiety lest perhaps professor so-and-so will discover that a printer's error has crept in which has resulted in the omission of a comma, where it ought to be, or of an accent where it might have been used, or of a semi-colon where a colon might have been more properly employed. That is true, and everybody knows it is true. The scholars themselves know it is true. I do not know whether that is an integral part of scholarship or not. I am not qualified to say, but it certainly is not edifying to the ordinary rational human being who believes that scholars are pursuing knowledge and not one another for the purpose of stripping the hide off him.
The last thing I want to say is this. I have read the schedule of subjects which the institute is designed to deal with in connection with Celtic studies. I wonder does the question of Irish music come within the scope of Celtic studies? I see the difficulties here involved. It may emerge that research on those lines might be more expeditiously and effectively done by some other machinery. Nevertheless the fact is that there is an immense mass of native music within this country which is practically unknown; to the vast majority of the people in our country, Irish music means the intolerable tedium of the slip jig, the four hand reel and the squealing fiddle which harass the ear. These are unfortunately what the Ceilidhe band has inflicted on people. The Minister for Post and Telegraphs is responsible for this. During the last few months real Irish music has been discoursed from Radio Eireann and Irish airs have been delightfully produced. I do not know what the size of that problem is. I do not know what measure of work can be done to recover the lost parts of that department of our national culture. I do not know if the Institute of Higher Studies is the appropriate arena for that kind of work but I think it is a matter that might be taken into consideration. With my very limited knowledge it seems to me to be a branch of learning in which there is ample scope for considerable development.
And jobs to be got out of it.
I sympathise with Deputy Mulcahy's suspicions of this scheme. Perhaps it is because the wish is father to the thought in this matter that I am trying to believe that this institute is not going to be run on the lines of jobbery. Any scheme can be spoiled if those responsible for its administration are concerned to spoil it. If this institute is going to be run along the lines of jobbery, favouritism, and nepotism then it is going to be a gigantic failure. But assuming that it is not going to be run on these lines—and that is a very considerable assumption but I am assuming it—I welcome the Bill. I will vote for the Bill and in so far as it applies to Celtic studies I am prepared to defend it in the country. I do not know whether the Prime Minister at this stage attaches immense importance to mathematical physics or not, but I am convinced that it would be important to the Bill to leave out the categories referring to mathematical physics—to leave these for another day should it appear desirable in the time to come. I think that would be a reasonable kind of gesture to those who are not in actual agreement with me in the points I am making. It is because I am anxious to see this started in an atmosphere of goodwill and pretty general cordiality that I wish to see it confined to Celtic studies. If it is I am prepared to support it here or anywhere else where the scheme may be called in question.
I am afraid that neither Deputy Dillon nor the Taoiseach is going to get entirely that element of cordiality for which Deputy Dillon hopes. I oppose the whole Bill whether for Celtic Studies or mathematical physics. To my mind the most important thing that concerns this House in any way is the amount of money likely to be spent and the amount of money this House is to be asked to provide for the carrying out of a Bill. So far we have not heard from the Taoiseach what is likely to be the cost of the setting up in Dublin of an institute for advanced studies and for the setting up immediately under it of a constituent school for Celtic studies and theoretical physics and, in addition, giving the Government power that whenever it thinks it is in the public interest to do so, they may set up additional schools to deal with other advanced studies.
I do not mind even if it is felt that I am attacking Celtic studies, when I say that at the present moment and in our present position I would not vote for the spending of 1d. for any Bill for Celtic studies or the other things mentioned in this Bill. Instead of spending money on suggestions such as these, this House would be better employed in spending money on a hundred other things that are necessary in this country in the times through which we are passing. We are presented here with a Bill to establish a certain institute and two constituent colleges in the future. Like everything else that happens in this country when the Government starts a scheme and gets a certain amount of money one knows that they will come back, year after year, for the additional money that will be required. I would like to know from the Taoiseach whether he could give us any idea of what the expenditure under the Bill will be. In Section 5 are set out the duties of the school of Celtic Studies. In the present Estimates we are paying out money for quite a number of things set out in Section 5 of this Bill. For instance, there is the grant annually for modern Irish literature in the University College, Dublin. There is the grant to Trinity College for the general expenses of the school of physics; under the Vote for Science and Art there is the grant for publications in Irish; production of plays in Irish; for the production of Irish county histories, a grant for the Irish Folklore Commission; scholarships to Gaelic students and grants for a number of other things. Is the position going to be now that you are to set up this school of Celtic studies under this Bill and advance to that school a lot of money for dealing with all the items in Section 5? Are we still to go on providing money as set out in the Estimates for the various items under science and art and university education and have people under this Bill doing exactly the same jobs? Are we to go on paying grants to the Folklore Commission and to people who deal with Irish publications? Are we to continue the grant to the Irish Committee of Historical Sciences? I do not see why, if we are to set up a school of Celtic studies, we are still to continue doling out money in small or large sums to the various bodies that I have mentioned. We have been paying out all these moneys for a number of years.
Actually there is only one possibility connected with this Bill that might induce me to vote for it. Deputy Dillon referred to that when he suggested what the Taoiseach's idea was when he brought in the school of theoretical physics. If this House would make the Taoiseach a present of a school of theoretical physics, no matter how much money we expended upon it, and if part of the bargain was that we put the Taoiseach in charge of the school for the rest of his life and out of this House, then I believe I would vote for the Bill, but not otherwise.
I believe that you cannot justify the spending of money on this type of institute at present. The Taoiseach advanced no argument as to why we should spend money on it. When Deputy Mulcahy said that he was going to reduce it to a "Pat Murphy" argument, I think he hit the nail on the head. In this country at present the children are going into the primary schools and, as Deputy Mulcahy said, they are coming out of them possibly with a smaller knowledge of mathematics than those who preceded them ten, 15 or 20 years ago. The same applies to quite a number of other subjects. The position is going to be now that we are providing money for advanced Celtic studies, advanced studies in theoretical physics and anything else which the Government sees fit to provide money for and jump from the period when a child leaves the primary school or the secondary school, after a year or two there, over the intervening period. We are doing nothing to cover the gap. Deputy Dillon said the function of the university was to train people for professions that would enable them to get jobs. It would be far better for the House to spend any money they are spending on education on fitting young people for jobs when they would come out of the primary schools and the secondary schools so that they would be able to take up a position in life.
I think there is no justification for this Bill. There is a lot of nonsense talked about Celtic studies in this country. You can justify any expenditure of money in this country, you can justify anything in this country by making it Celtic, Gaelic, Irish or national. Anybody who would attack this Bill probably would be attacked all over the country as anti-national and anti-Celtic. You can justify anything you do in this country by tagging on to it the name of Celtic, Gaelic or national. At the present moment, when every individual in the country will find it hard to provide money to meet his ordinary needs, and when the Government will find it hard to get money to meet their needs, there is no justification for spending money on Celtic studies and theoretical physics. If we are going to spend this money, one might ask what does the Taoiseach hope to gain either for individuals or for the country as a whole in establishing this institute and its constituent colleges? After a while it may become famous all over the world; it may, in days to come, be felt here in Ireland that we have done something for the cause of advanced studies; and this institute may be spoken of very well in educational circles all over the world. We might spend quite a lot of money and we might achieve that object; but the money we spend in achieving that effect might not be worth anything at all to this country. The mere fact that in future this country was going to get a certain amount of kudos for attempting to advance learning or, as the Taoiseach said, to advance the frontiers of known knowledge is not, I believe, sufficient to justify the spending of money upon it.
Both the Taoiseach and some of the other speakers have shown how vague the supporters of the Bill are, because the Taoiseach suggested that one of the objects was to extend the frontiers of known knowledge and another speaker in supporting the Bill said the function of the Bill was to widen knowledge. It is obvious that the Taoiseach and his supporters are very vague about what they want to do. What does the Taoiseach want the Bill for? What is the institute going to do or the schools going to do? Are we going to be faced next year or the year after, if the present Minister for Education is still in charge, with the possibility of being provided with nice new constituent colleges simply because the Government decide under Section 4 (2) that it appears to them in the public interest that constituent schools should be established for the advanced study of other things than those mentioned in sub-section (1)? I think that is the whole joke in the Bill—that the Government may in the future come to this House and ask for public money to enable them to set up another constituent college for some type of advanced study because it is in the public interest. Nothing that the Taoiseach or the other speakers who half supported the Bill said has convinced me that it is in the public interest or in the interest of any individual that we should vote money to the Government for the carrying out of this Bill.
The Taoiseach may be able to convince me that there are reasons why we should vote this money but he will want to tell us something else. He will want to tell us how much money he wants. Surely it is not suggested that this House should pass a Bill which is going to entitle the Government to demand from the House any money they want to carry out the schemes suggested in the Bill. When the Taoiseach is replying I should like to get definite information from him as to what he believes the initial expenditure will be if this Bill is passed, what the estimated annual expenditure will be, and what is the total liability that this House will have to ask the State to foot under the Bill.
Mar Theachta as an Ghaedhealtacht bheirim-se mo bheannacht don Bhille seo. Níl áit sa tír a bhfuil níos mó measa agus urraim ar lucht léighinn ná tá i measc daoine bochta san Ghaedhealtacht. Bíonn bród as miosúr ortha nuair a chluin siad fa cháil no clú Gaedhil ar bith i gcúrsa léighinn agus oideachais. Bhí sin san dúthchas aca ariamh anall ón am a bhí Éire mar lóchrann ag an domhan go léir agus nuair a bheirtí Oilean na nOllamh uirthi.
Mar sin de tá lúthgháir orm-sa — agus labhraim don choitchianntacht agus ní do lucht an áird-léighinn — deirim go bhfuil lúthgháir orm go bhfuiltear ag cur an fhorais léighinn seo ar bun le cúrsaí áird-léighinn a chur chun cinn sa tír seo.
Is cinnte gur ion-mholta an obair uasal intleachtach so a bheith eadar lámhaibh againne seachas an troid úathbhásach agus an dearg-ár atá ag dul ar aghaidh fa láthair ar mhórroinn na h-Éorpa. Buidheachas do Dhia go bhfuilmid as an chosán aca.
B'fhéidir fosta gurb é toil Dé é go mbéadh sé i ndan don tír seo lóchrann an léighinn agus na síbhialtachta agus na Críostamhlachta a thógáil arís san mhór-roinn nuair a bhéas an cogadh seo thart.
Rinne naomh-scolairí na hEireann é cheana agus má tá gábhadh leis dheanfaidh siad an obair chéadna ar ais. Sé m'umhal-bharamhail fosda go dtógaidh an foras léighinn seo intinn ár ndaoine féin ó umar an mhírin agus an imris agus go gcuideochaidh sé le síothchán agus séan a thabhairt ar ár dtír go léir, ó thuaidh agus ó dheas.
Bhéarfaidh sé caoi dár scoláirí leanstan de shaothar Mhícheáil Uí Chléirigh agus obair Uí Dhonnabháin agus Uí Chorraighe a thabhairt chun críche. Mar sin ní bhéimid i mainghin scoláirí na Gearmáine gidh gur domhain dícheallach a threabhuigh siad san. Ar aon chaoi 'sé ár gceart, a bheith in innibh riar do lucht léighinn ins na céimeanna is airde mar mhaithe le clú agus ónora na hEireann.
Perhaps I assumed too much in thinking that the purposes of this Bill did not need very much explanation. I thought that the purposes would be understood and that there would be a greater measure of appreciation of what is intended than has been shown by those who spoke from the opposite side. I find it very hard to understand why, in dealing with a Bill of this sort, we should be treated to what might properly be an argument or a criticism that would be brought up on the Estimates about the position of primary education. The second last speaker spoke of a gap between the infants going to school and the people doing advanced studies in mathematics and advanced Celtic studies.
It should be clear to everyone that all that is intended here is to supplement work that cannot under the pressure of modern conditions be given full attention in the universities; to supplement that by making it possible to have the work done under conditions of less stress than if it were done by the universities. It is ridiculous to say that this is taking away from the universities. It is not. The universities have not been able to do this type of work in any country and, in particular, have not been able to do it here, where so many of our people have to depend for a livelihood on getting into the professions, and so on. Research work will, I hope, continue to be done in the universities. The amount of research that can be done by anyone who has to teach a number of classes with various grades of students, for a number of years is relatively small. He cannot have time to do it. A certain amount of research work will continue to be done. In fact, it must be done if there is any enthusiasm at all in the professor, or if he is going to enthuse his students.
Instead of doing as Deputy Mulcahy suggested this will help the universities, because it will hold out an opportunity particularly to brilliant students to continue their studies under masters who will themselves be recognised as some of the best in the world in their subjects, and it will afterwards help the universities by sending back trained staffs whenever vacancies arise. It will also help the universities because the professors who will be in these institutes will be expected to give lectures in the colleges in Dublin on their own particular subjects. These occasional lectures will be open to students of the colleges and to the public. It was suggested that this Bill would get through if we had kept it to Celtic studies. I do not want to bring it here under any form of false pretences. This is not a Bill purely to advance the Irish language. It will do much in that respect as a matter of fact, but that is not its immediate purpose. Its purpose is to add a further storey to the educational edifice in this country, and to enable it to play its part in the general advancement of learning.
For those who can afford to continue from the primary and secondary schools, and the universities, and for the specially-gifted students who have the character and the talent, as well as that particular devotion to learning which will indicate that scholarship is their career, there will be an opportunity in the institute. Up to the present there was no opportunity for anything of the kind. For example, you had the Faculty of Celtic Studies in the National University. A number of people got travelling studentships and they have come back, but there was no equipment and no career open to them. You would have them advancing learning and the Celtic language, but they had no opportunity of continuing. No opportunity was given them although there was work for them to do. They found themselves cut away from that career in which they would naturally start. You find them finally in business, and so on. The country has lost considerably by that fact. I did not want to bring it up here, as suggested by Deputy Dillon, that it is for one school alone. That would not indicate what the purpose was.
It was suggested by Deputy Dillon that a number of other schools as well as theoretical physics might be added. The only question was that we had to make a beginning. We had to choose that which is best for a beginning, that for which the best opportunity presented itself. Medicine was mentioned. As a matter of fact some research work in medicine is being done. Medicine would be a very proper additional school at certain times in this institute, and for certain types of research work. It was said that this was all humbug. It can always be said of a thing that it is humbug if you do not understand it, and do not see what its value is going to be. We have people saying that all pure science is humbug. It must be realised that it has its application to practical life and that it has changed the whole world. You have the pure scientist, and then practical people come on afterwards and apply it to the problems of life. The pioneering work is done by an institute such as this, and afterwards you have those who are engaged in practical work taking up the ideas and immediately applying them and making them available for our life by providing greater facilities of various kinds. Anyone can sneer at pure knowledge learned from scholarship.
Anyone can twist a speech into calling the scheme pure humbug.
The scheme is called "pure humbug" only by those who think of the whole idea as humbug.
That is a new line. This is higher learning free, gratis and for nothing.
It is certainly not an unfair inference from some of the criticism I have been listening to for the last hour or two.
Is it a fair inference to have——
I think I ought to be allowed to speak.
Allowed to twist.
The Deputy will have an opportunity of speaking afterwards.
No. I can only correct the mistakes of the Taoiseach now.
The Deputy had an opportunity of speaking and he was not interrupted. It is easy to call a thing "humbug" if you approach it from that point of view and if it cannot be immediately proven that there is bread and butter in it. There is, ultimately, for the human race and for the people of every country, bread and butter in learning and knowledge and the pursuit of pure science. I did not want to have in this scheme one school which would give the wrong impression that it was simply an additional organisation to promote Irish studies. It is intended to be something different. It is a further stage in the general edifice of education and learning in this country and it is needed. It is intended to be a modest beginning but fairly representative.
I was asked what mass of material remained to be done. I do not pretend to be a Celtic scholar any more than I pretend to be a mathematician, but I have been assured by Irish scholars that a vast mass of material relating to early modern Irish requires to be worked over, edited and made available. I have been told that the making of that material available by those workers who would be competent to do it would occupy a period of from ten to 20 years. There would be no use in putting people to do work of that kind who were incompetent. Competent workers have to be trained by competent directors and it will take from ten to 20 years to do the mass of material with anything like thoroughness. There is the production of grammars and dictionaries to be considered. That is as far as the school of Celtic studies is concerned. By "Celtic", I want it to be clearly understood, we mean more than merely Irish studies. We are thinking of the related Celtic nations and we are anxious to hold our place, as I indicated at the start, as the chief centre for Celtic studies. There was a time when the centre of Celtic studies was outside this country but, as time goes on, it is becoming more and more apparent that this country is the natural centre for Celtic studies and we have the men for the work. In this school, the number of professors at the start would not be more than three. You are not to imagine a college like Trinity College or the Dublin College of the National University, with some thousands of students. You are not to imagine a large edifice with dozens of classrooms. All that is necessary is a private room for each professor and a couple of rooms for students, who may not be more than ten or 20 at a time.
Coming back to the question of mathematical or theoretical physics, I indicated why that subject was chosen. It was chosen because there happened to be available a man who was described to me by a professor of mathematical physics in Dublin—himself a man of international reputation and standing—as being the greatest mathematical physicist in the world. Were it not for the war—this scheme was framed before that—another man of similar standing would have been available. Three men were available who had been selected as members of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in which, of all the scientists of the world, there are only 70 members. Why should we lose such an opportunity as that when the expense was trifling and when we could have here a school to which people would come from all parts of the world if they wanted to be experts in certain branches of mathematical physics? Relatively, the expense was trifling. The opportunity was tremendous, and it was in line with our tradition as a country of great mathematical physicists.
It was not possible to have this gentleman's services without this machinery?
It was not possible to have his services without this scheme, which was, in any event, required for other reasons. In modern times, you do want an additional stage to the edifice of education and learning in this country. You cannot do without it. You talk about the teachers of the secondary schools. You will not have good teachers in the secondary schools unless you have good professors in the universities. You will not continue to have good professors in the universities unless you have institutions such as this to which they will go. You will not have good teaching in the secondary schools or in the primary schools unless there is enthusiasm for learning on the part of the professors in the higher schools.
Then these are to be schools for professors?
Exactly. These will be schools for advanced studies on the part of men who would be the material for professors, men such as we send out from the National University each year on travelling studentships to such institutions as this will be and to meet such masters of their subjects as these professors will be. I am standing firm on the school of theoretical physics as one of the foundation schools. I believe it will prove to be of great advantage to this country. It will be the least expensive part of the scheme, and I am willing to wager that, if a dozen other schools are added, not one of them will be added with the same small expense. With the two schools, you get a picture of the institute as it is going to be. With one school, you get no such picture.
I was asked what each of the schools would cost. These things ought to begin modestly and be allowed to grow and develop naturally. Taking in the whole cost of administration, the estimate for the early years is about £15,000. If the scheme were working at the maximum which we can envisage at the present time, the cost would go to about £26,000. When you think that we are already spending in this way in connection with agricultural science alone a sum of about £40,000, you begin to see how relatively small the expense of this institute, with its two schools, will be. For the National University, we provide, I think, £160,000. For the building for this institute, two or three houses of the type of the houses in Merrion Square would be sufficient. The work will not be that of ordinary teaching. It will be the teaching of advanced students and the leading of them along lines of research, while enabling the professors themselves to proceed along the same lines. For the reasons I stated, you cannot do research work in the universities at present. When a professor is working at a class, a brilliant student may suggest something that is particularly interesting. The professor cannot delay and pursue that interesting topic if it opens into a special subject. If that happened with advanced students in the institute, they would immediately stop ordinary work and pursue a line of investigation of that sort. In the university, students have to cover a definite course and suggestions of this kind could not be dealt with in the short time available.
I have often had to come here and support something which was unpopular on the opposite benches. The opposition of those Deputies is nothing new to me. I am not by any means discouraged by finding opposition to this measure, but I am, in a sense, surprised by it. I believe that the people will understand the work that we are doing, and that if, from time to time, in later years, there should be added in the framework which we have provided other schools, they would similarly support them because it has been the tradition of our people to have a regard for learning and for scholarship.
I am confident that the goodwill of the universities will be available. I have, of course, consulted with people who are experts in these subjects. As a matter of fact, the basis of the Celtic studies proposals came from the Irish Studies Committee of the Royal Irish Academy. There was a school of ancient Irish learning, but it was unable at a certain time to continue its work. Some of the work was later being done by the universities. Its goodwill was passed over to the Academy, where the work is being continued. I have been in consultation with the Committee and, very largely, the functions of the school are the result of communications which I have had with that body. I believe we have the goodwill of the universities and the Academy and that we will have the goodwill of the people of Ireland as a whole. I believe this institution will give results which will be altogether beyond anything in comparison with the money that will be spent on it.
Question put and declared carried.
I might add that there are a few amendments that I propose to bring in on the Committee Stage. For instance, in the council of the institute I propose to add, besides the constitution that is indicated there, the President of the Royal Irish Academy and the heads of the two other colleges here, the President of University College and the Provost of Trinity College, as ex officio members.
I take it that these amendments will be circulated in the ordinary way?
Yes.
Committee Stage ordered for Wednesday, 17th April.