asked the Minister for Education whether he has any comment to make on the reported Trinity College-UCD link up.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Trinity College-UCD Link.
30.
Mr. O'Malley
I propose, with your permission, a Cheann Comhairle, to circulate with the Official Report a copy of the statement in relation to this matter made by me on Tuesday, 18th instant.
Following is the statement:
UNIVERSITY EDUCATION IN DUBLIN
Statement of Minister for Education 18th April, 1967.
I have asked you to meet me so as to issue through you, representatives of the public press, the following statement in relation to University education in Dublin.
Everybody, I think, will agree that the university situation in Dublin is far from being satisfactory. We have here in the capital city of a small country what are to all intents and purposes two separate and very differently constituted university institutions, each endowed in major part by the State, but each ploughing its own furrow with virtually no provision, formal or even informal, for coordination of their efforts or the sharing by them of what must always be scarce but very valuable national resources. Those resources comprise knowledge and skills of the highest quality, accommodation, equipment and material generally.
As long as the financial support of the State for what are in essence two competing institutions was not in the circumstances unduly great—although in fact, apart altogether from capital provision, it stands at the moment at over £1,400,000 annually—the position could be tolerated. Now, however, that university education, with its rapidly increasing student numbers and as a consequence its increasing requirements in staff, accommodation, equipment and material, will be making very much greater demands than heretofore on the Exchequer, clearly the State cannot continue and cannot be expected to continue to subsidise any avoidable duplication of university services which merely adds to the cost and lessens the educational efficiency.
This is for several reasons an opportune moment to call halt and assess the position. In the first place, there is the general prospect, to which I have referred, of a vast increase in student numbers, with a corresponding increase in expenditure on university provision. Secondly, the Commission on Higher Education has just issued a Summary of its Report and Recommendations. Thirdly, the issue has already come to a head this year by way of university building claims to cater for the increasing demand for places.
Let me begin with Trinity College. Trinity, in its capital claim submitted in relation to 1967-68 and succeeding years, seeks a State grant of almost £2½ million. The bulk of the claim is based on a decision taken by the College authorities last year to raise their ceiling of students from 3,000, which corresponds with the College's present capacity, to 4,000, provided that the additional 1,000 students come from any part of Ireland.
The College's number of students in 1965-66 was 3,327, comprising:
From Ireland, 2,085, of whom 741 were from the Six Counties; from Great Britain, 947; from elsewhere, 295, including 30 from the Continent, 34 from the USA, four from Canada and one from Australia and New Zealand.
The bulk of the claim for almost £2½ million capital comprises £307,000 for scientific equipment; £812,000 for new buildings to house Engineering, Mathematics and some sections of Physics; £306,000 for a new building for Biological Sciences; £740,000 for the first of two Arts blocks and £46,500 for renovations and conversions in the School of Medicine.
Now I do not deny that the additional accommodation and other facilities would undoubtedly be needed if the ceiling were to be 4,000 without any reference to the origin of the total of the students comprising that figure. I would, however, have expected that in any circumstances a decision to increase by 1,000 beyond capacity would not have been made without the prior sanction of the State, which must pay the piper in respect of all the capital building concerned and also the major part of the consequential staffing and running expenditure. I would also have expected that this decision would not have been made at a time when Trinity still had over 1,200 non-Irish students. At present the State's annual expense for non-capital purposes in Trinity is about £170 per student, which means that in effect it would be called upon not only for the proposed additional, and later no doubt further additional capital expenditure, but also for a further non-capital annual expenditure of at the very least £170,000.
Let me here digress for a moment in order to state clearly and unequivocally that I am strongly in favour of a leavening of non-Irish students in our universities. An admixture of foreign students is a healthy thing in itself and moreover is in accord with the best Irish traditions. Ever since Colmcille left Ireland for ever in 563, Irishmen have been striving, as far as circumstances permitted, to make some return of the debt they owe to the rest of the world. In early times we not only sent missionaries throughout the Continent, but received here in our schools many scholars and students. In more recent times our people, both clerical and lay, have gone out to the ends of the earth to make return likewise. Now again also we have students from the ends of the earth seeking skills and training here which are not available to them at home.
Furthermore, we Europeans, who through the action of Providence and not, I should say, through any merits of our own, owe to Ancient Palestine, Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome our flying start over the rest of the human race in almost everything that matters, owe in turn to the developing countries of today, to Africa, Asia and Latin America, a sharing with them of that priceless heritage.
I favour strongly, therefore, our receiving a reasonable number of foreign students, but consider that it is unhealthy, both from their point of view and ours, that there should be any large block of them, and especially a large block from any country already developed, in any particular College, with almost none in the others, as is the case at present. They should be more evenly distributed throughout our Colleges. Furthermore, in the future arrangements, which I shall adumbrate in a moment, I would hope that foreign students will not have to be subject to any extra charge.
To return to the claims for capital subsidies. Side by side with the Trinity claim for over £2 million as a start, the Government, by reason of the prospective vast increase in student numbers, is inescapably committed to an eventual expenditure of over £2½ million for the new Art and Administration Block in UCD; for £1.2 million for the Students' Building there; and for an eventual £1 million for the new UCD Library; together with a vastly increased consequential annual expenditure. All this is apart from the prospective State expenditure, capital and current, in the other university institutions, whose claims, if not amounting to the Dublin figure, are equally compelling.
Again, we must not forget that there are legitimate and pressing claims from educational sectors other than the universities. The scheme for free second level education which begins in September next will call for its quota of millions. Then we have our primary system, with its need for hundreds of new schools; then the secondary and vocational schools, with their immense capital and current needs; the Training Colleges; the call for more and more audio-visual aids, including an extended use of television; the necessity for a very great deal more educational research; and of course the many findings of the Survey, Investment in Education and of the Commission on Higher Education are already knocking at the door. We are already spending on education much the same proportion of our national income as are the other western European countries. Soon, indeed, we shall outpass most of them in that regard. To my mind this will be very proper, as a small and poor country cannot afford not to spend more on education than a richer one. The sad aspect of the matter, however, is that while we probably are, and certainly will be, spending proportionately more on education than the other western European countries, our national income is lower per head than that of most of these countries, so that we shall in fact be providing less money per head for education than they. These are points that are seldom adverted to in the comparing of our educational system with others. The answer is that if we want still more education, we must have increased productivity. But while it is clear that increased productivity is what is basically required I am convinced that the prerequisite for this is more and better education. The interrelationship of productivity and education, is not, however, a vicious circle, but rather a coiled spring.
I am straying a little from my subject, but what I have been saying needs to be said and reiterated, if we are to see our educational commitments in proper perspective.
To return to expenditure at university level, we have three alternatives. We could continue to subsidise duplication, but this would simply be beyond our resources. We could arrest the growth of university education by maintaining it at the barest life-line. This cannot be thought of, for it would mean stagnation or worse. If a modern university is to avoid continual loss of staff and frustration generally, it must endeavour to expand its facilities to meet demand and must continually further equip itself humanly and materially to handle a rapidly increasing store of knowledge. Indeed, it must itself add to that store. This is especially so, of course, in relation to that very expensive sector, Science, but it applies also to the traditional Arts and Commerce subjects, Modern Languages, History and the like. Any university which would be prepared to sit still in the face of the rapidly changing world of today would not be worth its salt and in fact in modern conditions would be doomed. In turn, the atrophy and slow death of our university institutions, which are the fount and source of the country's advanced knowledge and professional skills, would simply mean that Ireland would have no place in the world of the year 2000, which is not so very far off.
There remains only the third alternative, a joining of forces with a view to the obviating of all unnecessary duplication, with its consequent financial and educational loss.
That such duplication has existed and still exists is of course the fault of no particular institution. In an address of the 10th September last to the National Union of Journalists it fell to me to point out that "our present university set-up is a legacy of history —and history is a stubborn wrestler", but that until the Commission on Higher Education should speak my lips were sealed.
Silence did not, however, forbid the devoting of thought to the problem that lay on my desk in relation to the financial year 1967-68, namely, the in essence competing claims of the two Dublin Colleges. The major part of the problem had been with the Department from the previous year, awaiting the Report of the Commission. No Report from a Commission, however, even were that Commission one of angels, could be expected to produce a simple and easy solution.
It seemed useful, therefore, as the matter was more and more pressing, formally to bring the situation before the Government. This I did in December last, with a view to exploring how best to rationalise the university position in Dublin.
The Government, while appreciating on the one hand the urgency of the matter but on the other that the Commission was expected very shortly to report, felt it would be proper to await the views of the Commission.
Now that a Summary of the Commission's Report has been issued, it emerges that it does not contain any recommendations for the establishing of a formally defined relationship between the two Colleges. Before proceeding, however, let me here thank very sincerely the Chairman and members of the Commission for their labours. I have seen the larger part of the Report proper and when it appears it will be evident from it that profound thought and very considerable energy have been bestowed on what is an extremely complex and wearying task. The members of the Commission, too, were caught in the web of history and, if, as was to be expected, their findings do not please this interest or that they have none the less served the nation truly and well.
If, therefore, in this particular problem of university education in Dublin, while recommending all possible co-operation between University College and Trinity College, they feel that each of these institutions should continue as an entirely independent entity without any formally established relationship between them, it was perfectly open to them to proffer that counsel.
For the reasons I have given, however, the Government consider that the public interest demands the establishment of a formal relationship between the two Dublin Colleges. The Government have accordingly authorised me to announce that it is their intention to proceed on the lines of my proposals of December last. Those proposals were framed on the basis of there being one University of Dublin, to contain two Colleges, each complementary to the other.
The two Colleges would be founded on the two existing institutions, University College and Trinity College. One University in Dublin would involve one University authority, statutorily established on a democratic basis, with a subsidiary authority, similarly constituted, for each of the two Colleges. In the matter of the identity of each College the feeling of the existing authorities will be given the utmost weight. I may add that I have this morning informed the President of University College and the Provost of Trinity College of these proposals.
This moment is not without its solemnity. It marks the end of an era in the long story of university education in Ireland and also, it seems to me, in the history of the country itself. Each of the institutions concerned has had a remarkable past and each has played a part of the highest importance to Ireland. Trinity, the , when founded more than three and a half centuries ago, was intended to be one of a number of Colleges of the University of Dublin. It is late in the day, but not too late, for it to become so.
In the intervening period it has produced a number of alumni whose fame has shed lustre not only on their College, but also on their country, in every part of the world—Swift, whose tercentenary, just now being celebrated, has attracted scholars from near and far, Berkeley, Goldsmith, Burke, Hamilton, to mention but a few. More important perhaps to us than even the world wide renown of these is that in every generation since Swift, Trinity College has produced from the ranks of the ascendancy a number of champions of the oppressed majority, some of them even becoming its leaders. The names of Swift himself, of Berkeley, Burke, Grattan, Tone, Emmet, Davis, Hyde and many others are sufficient evidence of that.
There may be those who will feel, mistakenly, that under the new arrangements something of "that which once was great has passed away." It is to be noted also however—there would be no point in ignoring it—, that the College as an institution was for long the pillar and prop of the oppressors. This is to be noted, but not remembered. The past in that regard is past. Besides, Trinity is not going to pass away. It will be merely taking the final step across the threshold of that mansion to which it properly belongs, the Irish nation. I think I may say sincerely that Ireland will welcome Trinity's final entry into the fold with all her history on her head, as in the words of John Kells Ingram, she has caught to her breast Dane, Norman, Old English, New English, Huguenots and many others.
On such an occasion one cannot help thinking it a pity that when in 1908 an opportunity occurred for Trinity to enter the new university complex which was then being established here, she was guilty of what might be termed the Great Refusal. It would be totally unjust of anyone to blame the present authorities and staff of the College for that attitude of sixty years ago and I do not do so. On the contrary, since that time, things have, as the poet said, "changed utterly", in Ireland and in the world. The present moment is in my belief a most auspicious one for a reversal of the 1908 decision.
University College, too, although it is only a few years since it held its first centenary, has already carved out its special place among us. Founded by the Catholic Hierarchy in 1854 as the Catholic University of Ireland, its first Rector was the illustrious John Henry Newman, that lord of language and ideas whose lectures on "The Idea of a University", first delivered in Dublin, are more and more studied in every university in the world. Following the Catholic University's weary "struggle with fortune", as it was called at the time, it survived as University College under the prudent direction of the Jesuit Fathers under whom it held its own and more than its own academically, but without State support, till in 1908, when it received statutory recognition as a Constituent College of the newly established National University.
In its time it has numbered among its alumni or staff those great scholars Eugene O'Curry, Father Edmund Hogan, Eoin Mac Neill and Douglas Hyde, the last two joint founders of the Gaelic League and Mac Neill the founder of the scientific study of our early history.
Later it gave us Pearse and Mac Donagh, who might be said to have stepped straight out of its portals into history. University College can claim too the name of Kevin Barry, which is graven in the hearts of the Irish people, and many other such who played a valiant part in the struggle for independence, not forgetting our present Uachtarán.
Since 1916 its special function has been to give our country the larger part of its teachers, scientists, engineers, doctors, dentists, architects, administrators and other professional experts, as well as its quota of public men, whose services have over the past fifty years been increasingly required in the building of the new Ireland.
There may be some also to deplore that it has not been seen fit to give University College the status of a separate University, such as Newman dimly foresaw. To those I would say that to form a part of the University of Dublin is a destiny which will eventually add greater prestige to University College than if it were to stand apart on its own. At any rate, the basic economic and educational facts of the case insist on the complementary position which I have outlined. The statutory arrangements will, of course, only lay the structure on which that complementary position will be achieved. The Commission on Higher Education has forecast that we may expect some 26,000 students in higher education by 1975, of whom about 23,000 will be attending university. At the moment our university student figure is about 16,000 and despite any damming of the torrent which may be achieved by such measures as two Honours in the Leaving Certificate for university entry, my personal forecast would be something like 27,000 and not 23,000 university students eight years from now.
At any rate, clearly now and not 1975 is the time to try to rationalise the position. There are many obvious ways in which this could be done. Why, for instance, should the State have to pay University College, Dublin, £160,000 annually and Trinity College £86,000 annually towards the support of two distinct Veterinary Faculties, when these two Faculties annually produce about 45 and ten Veterinary graduates respectively? Would not it be well if these two Faculties could be merged in a single institution? In the field of dentistry, thanks to the Government's action, the clinical teaching is given by all the staff, in the case of three Colleges, to all the students. Would it not be very desirable to bring about an arrangement whereby the pre-clinical dental students would be catered for in similar fashion?
In University College, Dublin, there are about 900 Science students, with about 900 more from various Faculties who take Science in their first year only. In Trinity there are about 300 Science students. Would it not be more economical for all these to be taught under the one roof, so to speak? I do not say that this can occur by October next. The switchover would take some years, but it is a target which we must set ourselves. Similarly in Medicine, similarly in Arts, the two other large Faculties, need there be unnecessary duplication of staff, duplication of building, duplication of equipment? These are the kind of things I have in mind when I speak of the two Dublin institutions being complementary to each other. If I am asked can the thing be effected, my answer is that, given the will to do it, it can be done—and I have no reason to think that the will shall not be forthcoming. There will be difficulties and there will still be some overlapping, but the whole thing cries out for some kind of complementary allocation.
It may also be asked would not such a coalescence of staff of this Faculty in one College and of that Faculty in another College be a case of overstaffing. As it happens, it would not, for, as is well-known, our university staff-student ratio is very weak compared with that obtaining in, say, Britain. In University College, Dublin, it stands at about one member of the staff to 22 students and in Trinity at about 1:16, whereas in Britain it is about 1:8. Even, therefore, it the staffs of the two institutions were to coalesce in any Faculty, the staffstudent ratio there would still be far from the optimum. The severest demand on any university today is the maintaining of international standards and in the long run the standard of any educational institution will depend on the numbers and quality of its staff. It is for us to be thankful that if our staff-student ratio is low, at least the quality of our university staff is high generally.
In this matter, therefore, as in many others, what makes economic sense makes educational sense too. The collaboration in one Faculty of the staffs of two existing Faculties cannot but contribute greatly to the raising of standards. Similarly, in research in which sector there is relatively a good deal of leeway to make up in all our Colleges: this was in large part due to the heavy teaching load, due to shortage of staff. There, too, accordingly, we may expect a great advance.
In passing, it may be mentioned that the finding of qualified staff for our university institutions is going to present us from this on with a very serious problem. For my own part I would have good hopes that under the new régime the most brilliant of our own postgraduate students would be carefully nursed so that when the time would come for them to seek a teaching post they should feel that their rightful place is in one of their own Irish university institutions. I believe that the proposed arrangement will contribute greatly towards that end.
I have treated mostly of the economic side of things and of training for the professions. Let it not be thought that for that reason the purely educational aspect of a university's functions is regarded by me as of little account. Far be it from me to convey that impression. We are all to some extent followers of Newman in the belief that a university has something more to give its students than mere training. If it is true to itself, it should also give them that indefinable thing which might be called quality. I believe firmly that the new University of Dublin will be better able to give its students "quality", in the best sense of the word, than could, under existing conditions, either of the existing Colleges.
Finally, but by no means least in importance, the new University of Dublin will not be "neutral" denominationally, but multi-denominational, with the fullest respect and recognition for all denominations of students and the fullest mutual respect among them for each other. "Neutralism" in relation to what happened two thousand years ago in Palestine would not have been and is not a concept that would have any appeal for the vast majority of Irish parents, whatever their denomination. In the future University of Dublin there will be provision for both Catholic and Protestant Schools of Divinity or Theology. This was not permissible to University College under the 1908 Act.
As I have said, we are at the opening of a new era in higher education. This national problem which has been with us for many generations needs only good will for it to be solved satisfactorily. I am confident that that good will shall be forthcoming and that the present is the ideal moment to evoke it.
Has the Minister anything to add to that statement? Will there be any real progress? There is still quite a lot of mystification about this amalgamation. For instance, will we arrive at the situation in which there will be one set of degrees or will this new college arrangement be a patching up of an existing difference? Having read the Minister's statement, I am still not convinced. I have the impression that a marriage has been arranged but I am not sure what the steps to be taken will be.
Mr. O'Malley
Several obvious replies jump to my mind but I will not give them. All I can say is that all these different matters will be discussed and examined; exhaustive discussions will take place and then in due course, I will put further proposals to the Government who will consider them and then legislation will be presented to the Dáil for discussion.
Are we to take that the proposals approved by the Government are shaky proposals, in view of the fact the Minister intends to put firm proposals to the Government hereafter?
Mr. O'Malley
The Deputy must be aware that the Government have come to a decision in principle that there will be a University of Dublin, with a common board or authority and two colleges. The views of the various interests concerned, in regard to all the other questions, will be obtained and that will give an opportunity to every interested party to express his or her view before the Government make a decision on the various matters which will have to be enacted here.
In anticipation of the legislation, can the Minister indicate when he might be in a position to give the Dáil and the country, including interested parties who have a vital interest in this, more definite details than those in his statement?
Mr. O'Malley
I do not think I could do that with any degree of accuracy, so much depends on the co-operation forthcoming and which I am sure will be there.
Can the Minister say what exactly he will do in the future with the present Chancellor of the University?
Mr. O'Malley
What will you do or what will I do?
What will you do?
The people looked after him——
Would I be right in assuming that there were no discussions with either university and that an independent decision was taken by the Government?
Mr. O'Malley
That is a reasonable assumption. I have seen a suggestion in some newspapers that there should have been prior consultation by me on behalf of the Government with the two universities and other interested parties. Were that to have been done, it would take another 100 years to do this.
I wanted to get it clear that the Government made the decision.