Amendment No. 1, in the name of Deputy Lindsay, is ruled out of order.
Committee on Finance. - Local Authorities (Higher Education Grants) Bill, 1968: Committee Stage.
SECTION 1.
Amendment No. 1 not moved.
Question proposed: "That section 1 stand part of the Bill."
My amendment No. 1 sought to delete the words "in the opinion of the Minister". I was at a loss as to how that tended to be a potential charge on the Minister— leaving out the words "in the opinion of the Minister". I accept the rest of the wording without question but I am at a loss on that. I do not see why it could not be as effectively raised without that particular clause:
Any other institution in so far as it provides courses leading to qualifications which are equivalent to university degrees.
Why is the opinion of the Minister necessary in this? If there are qualifications which are normally accepted as equivalent to university degrees, I want to know why it requires the imprimatur of the Minister to make them so? I want to know on this section, now that we are starting this scheme, now that it will be coming into operation in the next academic year, beginning in October, when boys and girls who qualify under this scheme will be entering upon the various careers open to them. The section says:
"approved institution" means ...
(a) a university or university college, or
(b) any other institution in so far as it provides courses leading to qualifications which are, in the opinion of the Minister, equivalent to university degrees.
Now is the time that parents and leaving certificate candidates, both male and female, should be informed as to what the avenues open to them are.
Of course, if you let the Bill pass. When the Bill becomes law, they will be informed straightaway.
I should like to have them informed now. Now is the time and day, when we are considering this.
We cannot make an order until the Bill becomes law. Is the Deputy serious?
Of course, I am serious.
I cannot make an order until the Bill becomes law.
This is not the subject matter of any order. There is no question of an order in section 1. The amendment has been ruled out of order. I do not see how it puts a charge on public funds.
I cannot make decisions or make orders until the Bill becomes law. I have no authority.
In this section it is neither an order nor a regulation; it is merely a question of opinion.
It is a decision. I cannot make a decision without authority. I must get the authority of Oireachtas Éireann.
I want to know now, on behalf of the parents of boy and girl leaving certificate candidates this year, what avenues are open to them. Before this Bill is passed, I want to put specific questions to the Minister in this regard and I want them answered. I want to know, apart from the university and university college business, what is meant by "any other institution". There is no such thing as an "approved" institution. Will "any other institution in so far as it provides courses leading to qualifications which are, in the opinion of the Minister, equivalent to university degrees", for instance, cover the boy or girl intending to study pharmacy? Will that include the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland?
Right: the Deputy is on the right track now.
I was always on it. The Minister tried to put me off it. Will it include the Incorporated Law Society, a person going to be a solicitor?
No. Such person will be going to university.
Will it include the ACA?
No. It will include higher technological education—Bolton Street, Kevin Street—if they are going to the top.
Would it include a subject like dentistry?
Yes.
Surely, it must include chartered accountancy?
It will include law subjects in the university.
Would it include the LL.B.?
No, the purely professional one.
The BCL or LL.B., which would entitle them to earn their living?
A doctor would get it but a barrister or solicitor will not?
Barristers and solicitors will get it if they take approved university courses and a doctor gets it when he is pursuing an approved university course.
Whatever the course, whether an approved university course, or whatever course leads a man to his professional career, should surely get the assistance envisaged in the Bill?
The Minister is well aware of the system whereby intending solicitors and barristers are guest students at university colleges and the fees are paid there.
If they are doing an approved university course, they will come under this scheme in respect of the approved university course. That is what I am saying.
But only for academic qualifications, not for the qualification that entitles them to earn a livelihood?
They are precisely the same thing.
The Minister knows how useful of itself is the BCL or LL.B.
Yes. Read subclause (b) of section 1.
It reads:
any other institution in so far as it provides courses leading to qualifications which are, in the opinion of the Minister, equivalent to university degrees.
I want to remind the Minister of a day not too far back when he himself was brought before the Benchers and the Honorable Society of Kings Inns and they addressed him specifically, each in turn, and said: "The Benchers and Honorable Society of Kings Inns are pleased to admit you to the degree of Barrister-at-Law" and when he came out of the grand seclusion of that gathering and came into open court in the Supreme Court, the Minister was addressed by the Chief Justice who said to him: "The Benchers and Honorable Society of Kings Inns having been pleased to admit you to the degree of Barrister-at-Law, I now admit you to practice in the courts of Ireland." There is the degree of Barrister-at-Law. Is that not equivalent to a university degree?
We should like to see all lawyers doing university degrees, surely?
Is not Barrister-at-Law equivalent to a degree or is the Minister prepared to disown it?
I did the other one, too.
I am quite serious about this because there are a lot of people, as the Minister well knows, who are prevented from doing courses of this kind, either solicitor or barrister, by reason of the fees. Will the Minister not be prepared to assist?
It is desirable to encourage people going for professions to go to the university also. This is what we would like to see. This is why we are giving the assistance towards that.
As the Minister knows, a certain part of the Barrister-at-Law degree is done in the university —one year or two years as the case may be. If the student has a university degree, it is one year and then two years in the Inns. Is the Minister prepared to assist that candidate up to the time he is in the university and then give him nothing in the remaining year?
That is right.
Why that distinction? Is that not a money class distinction? Is that not making it possible for the person who has the money to proceed for the next two years under his own steam and the person who cannot do that must go into some other channel, whereas he might have become one of the great orators of our time and a great pleader and advocate would be ruled out by reason of the fact that he or his parents had not the money or might have to wait until he earned it himself? Would the Minister not consider this?
I will have a look at it.
The same applies to the Incorporated Law Society. I appreciate that there would be some difficulty but at the same time I would not like to see people excluded specifically from this. Deputy Dillon has mentioned accountancy students—the ACA.
The criterion we have to follow is the question of apprenticeship. If the courses being pursued are whole-time courses, we will bring them in under it but if there is an apprenticeship element involved, obviously this is not a university degree or equivalent to a university degree. A person apprenticed in an accountant's office, being paid and doing an accountancy course at the same time and not at a university, could not come under it. It is a part-time course.
I can see the validity of that on the apprenticeship side. I am sure that Deputy Dillon would still make an argument about it.
I think there is validity in regard to what Deputy Lindsay is on in regard to whole-time students.
I do not mean a student doing a course part-time or in the evenings but a whole-time student.
I think there is merit in this.
This is insane.
I should like to see covered by this section students who will go to technological colleges but who may not have four of the university subjects. It may not be necessary, in order to follow an advanced course in a technological college either here or in Northern Ireland, to have four university subjects and it may not be practicable to get them. I should like to see provision for this rather than have it tied to four university subjects. I wonder if the Minister would consider this in order to help people who will not have four university subjects to follow higher technological education either in the Republic or in Northern Ireland?
Has the Minister not applied his mind to the problems that will arise? Take the question of chartered accountancy. There are two categories of qualified accountants here and in Great Britain and there are reciprocal arrangements with Great Britain which are very valuable. One is the ACA and the other is a certified accountant. There are two methods of approaching that qualification. You can either go to the university and get a BA, B.Comm or any other degree and then you do three years apprenticeship in the course of which you do two examinations prescribed by the Institute of Chartered Accountants, which is a common body to these two islands without reference to Partition or anything else. Or you can approach the qualification of ACA by doing a five-year course of apprenticeship to an Associate of the Chartered Accountants plus a prescribed course of lectures in Rathmines Technical School, or UCD or UCC.
If an articled clerk, as they are called, is in a position to get articled to a relatively wealthy office, he may receive during the period he is articled an incremental scale which may rise from something like £100 to £400 or £500 a year. But the number of such offices in a position to pay such scales is very limited and the relatively poor man's son finds himself usually articled to a small office or to an individual who may not be able to pay any scale at all. If the criteria outlined by the Minister are to apply, it means hereafter that nobody can become a chartered accountant who does not either get into a fashionable office or has not a rich father. I recognise that these are anomalies and problems presenting themselves which want careful investigation. I am perfectly certain there are many people in the Department of Education who are familiar with them if their minds were directed to them, but I have the horrible, uncomfortable feeling that we are barging into this business without any real appreciation of the anomalies and difficulties that are going to arise.
Our whole object is to provide everybody, without reference to their parents' income, with an equal opportunity of access to higher education and the professional qualifications flowing therefrom. If the Minister's criteria apply, it is going to have the reverse effect. Anyone who goes in for a BA, whether it is in psychology or sociology, is as safe as houses. We have at present the Sorbonne and Nanterre packed to the roofs with students of psychology and sociology until de Gaulle says: "What in the name of God are we going to do with 2,000 psychologists a year and 3,000 sociologists a year? Where will we put them? How will be employ them?"
Maybe they are right.
That is what you are doing. If a student goes to study psychology or sociology or one of these various new——
Subjects?
No, I want to use a very restrained word—courses leading to a situation in which they can be described as a BA, as we call them in rural Ireland, all his expenses are paid. The astonishing thing is that we are going to make provision for the traditional degree commonly known in bureaucratic circles in India, where an application is made, signed "Abram Singh, failed BA". He also is provided for. He can proceed free of charge to the dignified position of "failed BA". But a fellow who labours for six years to become a qualified chartered accountant is told: "You are an apprenticed person; you are only a part-time student and therefore you are excluded."
The fellow who proceeds to a medical degree, who spends two years in hospital walking the hospital wards and inspecting the patients, is deemed to be a fulltime student. What difference there is between walking the wards inspecting the patients and walking the office inspecting the accounts, which he is afterwards committed to examine all his life, I cannot understand. One man equips himself to help the sick and diagnose——
There is a scale of payment in one case; there is not in the other. It is as simple as that.
I am warning the Minister that there is not a scale of payment——
There is.
No. There is not a uniform scale payable obligatory under the articles.
Indeed there is. The Institute of Chartered Accountants lays it down.
I assure the Minister that, if he investigates that closely, he will find it is not true.
I will investigate it, but that is my information.
You will find it differs from office to office. Certain offices are not in a position to pay what other offices pay.
The great majority do today. The Deputy is thinking of the past.
A great majority get some stipend——
That was back in the Deputy's time.
As of the present day. Has the Minister discussed this with the Institute of Chartered Accountants?
It has been gone into in very great detail.
Did he agree with the Institute to exclude their students?
I have discussed this with them.
They agreed to the exclusion of their own students?
They appreciate the point behind this Bill, which the Deputy does not, that we want to incorporate accountants and lawyers into higher education. In so far as they do their higher education degree side by side with their professional degree, they will get the assistance set out in the Bill. Does the Deputy see the point?
If you are saying to the House: "We are urging people to go to university to do a BA——
B.Comm.
B.Comm or any other.
The Institute is very anxious that this Bill should be expedited to encourage their people to do university courses side by side with their apprenticeship.
I want to say quite categorically that there is a great deal to be said in certain cases for going to the university and a great deal to be said in other cases for not going to the university. You can approach that particular qualification most effectively——
This is what the Bill is about, grants towards higher education.
Higher education does not exist exclusively for BAs and B.Comms, or failed BAs and B.Comms either. This also envisages higher technological education, I assume.
That is right.
There are more ways than one of acquiring a higher technological education. It does not necessarily mean that apprenticeship must be excluded from the programme of a higher technological institution. I suggest to the Minister that he should examine this whole question very closely again, and approach with an open mind this question of whether young men and young women with technological qualifications for a profession should be forced to have a university degree. I think he will find there is a wide divergence of views amongst those best qualified to judge as to which is the best method of approach. It is not by any means a unanimous view that it is necessary to have an academic degree plus an abbreviated technical course.
I want to raise a specific question in regard to the habitual practice in the county which I represent which arises under section 1. I want to know whether section 1, paragraph (b), "any other institution in so far as it provides courses leading to qualifications which are, in the opinion of the Minister, equivalent to university degrees", will cover the Magee College, in Derry, and Queen's College in Belfast.
It will.
I am glad to have that categorical answer.
And Coleraine universities and technical colleges as well.
In the Six Counties.
It would be the Minister's intention to recognise Queen's College, Magee College and similar institutions in Northern Ireland? That is the information I wanted. There is no need to waste further time upon it.
I most sincerely and earnestly press upon the Minister that he should not allow himself to be persuaded without further and better inquiry into the belief that for any qualification such as ACA or architecture, it is essential to have a university degree. People are being educated in architecture in Bolton Street, which is a very highly thought of institute.
It will qualify.
It could not be left out.
ACA is a qualification which I think it is very important to encourage in this country because it will be very badly needed in the years that lie ahead. It has the inestimable advantage that it is a qualification which is internationally recognised, and it gives young men a chance to travel the world and get some experience and bring it back home if they do not elect to live permanently abroad. If it transpires that the Institute sets a standard of stipend for articled clerks, and if it is not found possible to get that stipend in some smaller offices in which the sons of certain poor men may be, will provision be made to ensure that such persons are not left to carry the burden of which it is our purpose to relieve them, simply because we have excluded the whole ACA course on the ground that the Institute of Chartered Accountants have recommended a scale of stipend which ought to be sufficient to facilitate the parents in meeting the cost of this education?
I will take another look at it.
That is perfectly fair. If we can arrive at an arrangement whereby any technological or university course involving apprenticeship will be financed out of this unless the student is in receipt of a stipend which ought to be sufficient to enable his parents to pay him expenses, I will be satisfied.
I want to clarify the position about teacher training. The Minister probably has in mind the integration of teacher training with university courses in the very near future, but I am concerned about the disadvantageous position in which teacher training will be this year vis-à-vis the facilities available for pupils under the scheme. The best a student teacher can hope for is a loan to enable him to pay the expenses of his training. He has to guarantee that he will teach within the State for a period of five years. There are no such ties on students if they opt for a university course under the scheme. This is the position this year and perhaps next year. Until such time as the whole position of teacher training within the university complex is clarified, teacher training will suffer a great disadvantage. Up to now we have had the cream of our people in the teaching profession. All Parties agree that there is a need to provide better education facilities for our boys and girls. We must start at the base. If teacher training is defective, the whole edifice is in danger. I would ask the Minister to make special provision for this and to equate it with the other courses which the Bill covers.
I want to press the Minister to accept Deputy Lindsay's amendment to this very objectionable and daring suggestion in section 1, that the Minister should have complete discretion, without any reference to this House, to decide what is and what is not an approved institution. This is bureaucracy gone mad. This House is being asked to give absolute discretion, without any brake, to the Minister to make any place he wishes an approved institution. We could reach the day when a Minister might suddenly decide that because his cousin wanted to go to a certain place, it should become an approved institution. Under the section as it stands, the Minister could do that. Some place could become an approved institution by virtue of a capricious or personal reason of the Minister's.
Responsible Ministers do not do that.
At the moment it could be done. It is outrageous that at the moment people are left in the situation that they do not know where they are.
They do.
The Minister has made it plain in the course of this debate, but a person who does not read the papers or the debates does not know the situation.
They will know it very shortly.
This House should insist on the Minister spelling out exactly what is meant by "an approved institution" and "the equivalent of a university degree".
I will, two days after this Bill becomes law.
I do not think that is right.
I will have authority from the Oireachtas to do that.
We are not prepared to give the Minister a blank cheque.
I should like to warn the Minister that, if the Bill goes through in the form he suggests, some fellow might say: "This is the equivalent of a university degree", and might go to court for a decision on what is the equivalent of a university degree, that is, if the Minister is democratic enough to accept our amendment, which removes his opinion and is the only norm or standard.
That is what we are here for.
I know. I ask the Minister to do it, so.
I have been asked by some people interested in accountancy to make representations that they be included in this measure. Deputy Dillon has adequately dealt with the matter and therefore I do not intend to proceed with it now. Will the College of Surgeons be included in this?
It is.
Will somebody proceeding to be a poultry instructress at the Model Farm in Cork, for instance, be covered? It is the equivalent of a university degree.
No.
What about the Apothecaries Hall?
No.
Will the course in the teacher training colleges be regarded——
I shall deal with that point. Training college courses are heading in this direction.
If the Minister took this step, it would be in the right direction, I think.
I wonder if the Minister would consider what he could do about places such as the Model Farm in Cork.
The Munster Institute.
In an agricultural country such as this, important work is done by poultry instructresses—I am sure the Minister would like to see the poultry instructed. We should do something for girls proceeding to the equivalent of a degree in poultry——
——and make our roosters prouder still.
I shall take up that point. A number of aspects have been raised as to what will come within the scope of the section. I shall make a fuller detailed announcement about it when the Bill becomes law. It is only right that parents should know where they stand. Teacher training was raised by Deputy Desmond and Deputy Cunningham. I have met the INTO and the members of our teacher training colleges and I have given an assurance, as I now give this House an assurance, that, by next year, we propose to have the training colleges affiliated and integrated into the new university situation.
It is high time that were done.
At the moment, we are in course of drafting a Bill dealing with the whole higher education structure in the country. Part of our planning in this respect is to have the teacher training colleges that exist now affiliated with our university institutions. I hope this will be law within the next six months so that, next year, they will be fully integrated and can participate in the scheme.
The scheme would cover the period of training within the college as well as the period in the university?
Yes, the idea being that the training period in the training college would be regarded as part of the degree course.
They are proceeding bona fide to a degree.
I hope that will be the case from next year on.
In case anybody thought I was leaving out my special friends, will people entering the Church continue right through to ordination or will the grants finish at primary degree?
Once they are proceeding to a degree. If they are proceeding to a further degree, following the primary degree, the grants will cover that situation.
Generally, the course is about six to seven years. At the end of three years, a theology student gets a BA, BD or something like that. Then he moves on to the theology period.
Not unless he is doing a further degree after the primary one.
The Minister is prepared to equip him academically but not theologically?
If the Deputy wants to phrase it in that way.
Would the Cork School of Art with students who are proceeding to an architectural degree come in under an approved institution?
Yes, so long as it is part of a university course.
They do some of the work in Cork and then they go on——
Yes.
After the primary degree, you make a grant?
Yes. If they are pursuing a degree after the primary degree, they will get assistance.
An MA or a Higher Diploma in Education.
This is different from anybody else. It does not apply to others.
A medical student can go his whole seven years with the grant.
A medical student is pursuing a world-wide recognised course in medicine. He gets it right through.
By virtue of the special position here of religion of all denominations, would the Minister think that those entering Maynooth, All Hallows, Kilkenny, Wexford, the Divinity School in Trinity, Magee College, and so on, should be assisted right to the end?
It is not an academic course.
It is a very important course in relation to the life they have to lead afterwards and their particular relationships with other people. It is very necessary.
I shall have discussions about it. I shall look into it.
I understood that this was available for a primary degree.
Or further degrees as well—MA, Higher Diploma in Education, LL.B, and so on—any further degree after the primary degree, any university degree or equivalent.
Would it cover, for instance, a man who qualifies in the Royal College of Surgeons and then elects to proceed to a Fellowship—a man who does not take a job?
Yes, he is covered.
Then I think the clergy would have to be covered, too.
It would hardly lead to a DD, would it?
I am not sure what the Deputy has in mind there.
Is section 1 agreed to?
Yes, on the understanding that we shall have a further talk about the matter on Report Stage.
Question put and agreed to.
SECTION 2.
Amendments Nos. 2, 3 and 4, in the name of Deputy Lindsay, have been ruled out of order as they tend to impose a charge on State funds.
Amendments Nos. 2, 3 and 4 not moved.
I seem to have a particular capacity for getting myself ruled out of order. I suppose that, without doing that, one cannot get across the opinions one wants to get across from time to time.
I move amendment No. 5:
In subsection (1) (d), page 2, line 42, before "by" to insert "by regulation".
In this section, a corporation of a county borough or council of a county shall make grants to persons who are ordinarily resident in the functional area——
Amendment No. 6 is cognate and amendment No. 7 is related. Would the Deputy be willing to take amendments Nos. 5, 6 and 7 together?
Yes.
Might I raise a matter?
I have not finished on this business of people ordinarily resident in the functional area. In his discussion on the last section, the Minister said these grants would apply to persons going, for instance, to Magee College and would be granted to persons who were ordinarily resident within the area of the State. I understand there was a situation in Donegal—Deputy Cunningham may be of more assistance than I am in this matter—in the administration of scholarship schemes in the past whereby, while they awarded normally their scholarships on the results of the leaving certificate, they held a special examination for Donegal students attending schools in Northern Ireland. If a person from any part of Donegal or, say Monaghan, Cavan or Louth, any Border county, for some good reason attends a school within the functional area of the Six Counties— Queen's is open and Magee is open and ultimately Coleraine—when will he get a chance to do the leaving certificate, supposing the GCE or other qualifying examinations are held at the same time?
I think there is a real difficulty here which must be resolved. If people are to have available grants for Queen's, Magee, Coleraine or Dublin and are going to school in Northern Ireland— Deputy Cunningham will probably be able to elaborate on this; I have only been giving the bones of the situation —it seems to provide real difficulty in the administration of this Bill when it becomes an Act.
My amendment No. 7 was designed to provide that regulations under the Act shall be laid before each House and I think that is standard. What I want is an opportunity for the House to discuss the regulation if it so wishes rather than be bound by simple regulations sent out by the Department over which we would have no control and which we would probably have to make the subject matter of Parliamentary Questions with the usual unsatisfactory results.
As regards means, while again my amendments have been ruled out of order, I am not satisfied that this means test will operate fairly. If one looks at the chart, say, for a person who is not normally resident in or adjacent to a university town, as far as I can see here, on an income of between £2,000 and £2,100, he must have five children before he gets £50. I am not quite clear, and I am genuinely seeking information, as to whether that £50 would be applicable only, say, to the fifth child——
No. To all of them.
Then it is not so bad.
It is not as bad as it looks. In the unlikely event, then, of a man with just £2,000 a year living away from a university and having five children at the university at the same time, he would get £250?
That is right—£50 for each child.
That will be a help but not a very great one. The Bill goes on in subsection (c) to say:
The persons are within the appropriate age limit prescribed from time to time by the Minister, and, The persons comply with such other requirements as may from time to time be prescribed by the Minister.
The Minister has not told us anything about age limits but I understand that the Department, in an effort to be helpful, have sent a kind of specimen around to local authorities on which they may base proposed schemes. I understand the age of 18 is suggested in that.
We are in the hands of the universities—whatever they lay down.
They cannot go in under 17?
That is so.
I see. This raises another question I think the Minister should look at before he comes back to us with this Bill. It is this: I have here a copy of this specimen scheme which the Department sent out. In it there is a reference to attendance and to the fact that a candidate must comply with the entrance requirements laid down by the university or other institution of higher education which the candidate wishes to attend. It says that the candidate must have passed the leaving certificate examination for 1968 and secured honours in at least four matriculation subjects in that examination. I think that is a bit severe. I have had a lot of letters and I am sure the Minister has had——
Indeed I have.
I have letters from each of three people who got four honours in 1967.
Any time you bring in anything progressive this happens.
I know. At the same time, this is a bit harsh. At that time there was not a word about this. They did not go to the university during the academic year now finishing and they are doing Latin that they did not have in 1967 for the leaving certificate. They are now doing Latin in the leaving certificate in order to qualify for the particular Faculty in which they wish to enter. These people should be considered.
They are not in the university yet?
No, but they did the leaving certificate in 1967 whereas this scheme proposes to deal with pupils who do the leaving certificate next week or the week after.
You must draw the line somewhere.
Not with students, unless they are professional. They only do a few years in any case.
Many of them who have made the point in correspondence are students in a university but before departing from the others, there cannot be too many in the class of which I am speaking who did not go to university last year because they did not have some subject necessary to enable them to proceed to the Faculty of their choice. They are doing that subject this year in order to qualify for entrance. I think those people have a case.
I could look into that.
Those are borderline cases——
If the Deputy wants to be of assistance, he should say: "I agree completely with Deputy Lindsay." That would be bound to have effect on the Minister.
Aon mhuintir amháin Muintir Mhuigheó.
Agus Ó Beoláin as Baile Átha Cliath.
I have had other correspondence dealing with different cases. Much of it deals with students who are already in the universities. That was why I put down this amendment which has been ruled out of order to enable this scheme to date back to the academic year 1964. I appreciate that this could impose a potential charge on the Exchequer but I do not think it is any harm to throw these things out. All these students point out the distinction that is made in relation to university grants starting this year and the way in which the post-primary education position was handled by giving education free to all then in attendance as well as those coming in last year. There seems to be a different principle operating for those attending secondary schools from that which it is now proposed to apply. I suppose it is money.
That is it.
I do not think the people would object—I certainly would not—to getting money by taxation to provide assistance for students who are already in the university and qualify for it. I do not think the people would object to it. It would not amount to very much and it would be a decreasing charge, because those people who are already there would be moving along; payment in respect of them would be getting smaller and would eventually diminish entirely.
That is all I want to say, but I am keen on the insertion of the words "by regulation" so that we would have an opportunity of discussing it if we so desire. If it seems necessary to any Member of the House to discuss it, we have it there in the regulation to be laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas.
I asked the Ceann Comhairle for permission to raise a question earlier on some of the points which Deputy Lindsay has just made. The first point is a very good one, that secondary education covers all the existing pupils while it is proposed to confine the free university education to those who will be doing the examination this year. I should like the Minister to explain how he ties this up with the proposal to have the money already paid for university education included in the amount of money being expended, because some of that money pays for the students who are already at the university. Would the Minister say how he proposes to take this into account on one side and not take into account the fact that these students are attending. It means that those who got four honours and did not get a university scholarship are being left out. If existing students are to be covered, and I think they should be, we have got to face up to any additional taxation that may be necessary. It is not a big problem.
It is. I would like to do it naturally.
Would it be that big?
It would.
Why not do it in respect of those who have got four honours? I know of two cases in my own constituency, who have gone to the university with four honours but who did not get a university scholarship and who this year must terminate their studies because their parents—in one case a widowed mother and in the other, a small farmer—are unable to continue the payments necessary.
And they complain they have to go to England during the summer.
It is said that university students should be allowed to study during the summer holidays, but I do not think it does one bit of harm to a boy or girl to learn what it is to have to earn a living. It may come in useful afterwards when they are in charge of people like that. There are cases where students must terminate their studies, even though they are brilliant, because they have not got the necessary money. It would be unfair to ask the Minister for a snap decision, but I think he should consider it before he goes any further. There is another point about which there was a lot of head shaking when I asked a question earlier today, the question of students who got four honours last year but who did not get Irish. If that student does the examination and gets Irish, will he qualify?
No. I will look into that, but as we envisage it at present, no.
It can happen that a student, because he is normally good at Irish, concentrates on other subjects and fails in Irish, possibly by one or two marks.
If you start making exceptions, you are in terrible trouble.
This can happen only once. It will not happen again because you will then have the routine.
I will look into that.
I wish to refer to the closing date for applications which a number of local authorities have announced. The Minister has indicated that he intends to consider the tenability of scholarships in the rest of the country as well as in the Republic, on which I congratulate him. However, as regards those in secondary schools who are normally resident in the Republic but attend schools in Northern Ireland, it has not been clear from the Bill that they will be eligible to sit for the leaving certificate and qualify for a scholarship. I think the Minister has indicated to me and to others that they will be eligible.
Yes.
But this will not be known.
On the GCE?
They will be eligible to sit here.
In other words if they do the leaving certificate, they will be eligible.
I know, but they have their examination in Northern Ireland.
This will not be announced possibly until after today in the press and we will have late applications. In the case of my own county the closing date is 31st of this month, and when it becomes known that these people will be eligible, I trust the Minister will ensure that they will not be disqualified by a late application.
We will do that. The Deputy has that assurance. In fact we will be very flexible, because we realise this matter has come up quickly. If there are any late applications we will accept them.
Deputy Lindsay raised another problem. As the Minister will be aware, his Department sanctioned a special examination; in other words we had the problem of Donegal people attending schools in Northern Ireland, and I am sure the same applied in Monaghan, Cavan and Louth, the other border counties where secondary education was received in schools, colleges and convents in Northern Ireland. We had the special examination for them because in many cases the date of the GCE clashed with the date of the leaving certificate. This will happen again, and there is no good in the Minister saying they are eligible to get these university scholarships but they must do the leaving certificate.
One can picture somebody who has spent five or six years at school in Northern Ireland as a day boy or girl or boarder. He does not want to forgo the examination for which he has been studying, the GCE, and he cannot possibly do the leaving certificate. This is going to create a problem but this problem was created before and was dealt with by the Department sanctioning an examination that would be acceptable to them, an examination which was, in the case of Donegal, arranged by the local authority. The concession is of no use unless this is done. The only thing I can suggest at the moment is that he accepts the standards of whatever examination they do, whether it be the GCE, or O Levels or indeed if he is not satisfied with O Levels, then A Levels, the advanced levels, and doing as has been done before, having a special examination based on the leaving certificate standard.
I should also like to support those speakers who advocated that scholarships should be available to those in the university and especially to those who did the leaving certificate last year. The amount of money which would be required to allow people in the university to complete either one, two or three years—three would possibly be a fair average, although there might be those who would have to complete four or five years—would not be very great but it would satisfy all of us who have been asking for this.
In regard to the point raised by Deputy Lindsay regarding subjects, you have to have four honours in leaving certificate subjects. It is not fair to penalise students who were studying subjects which were not recognised as matriculation subjects. That was due to the lack of liaison between the university and the Department. It is unfair to lay the blame for this on the students. There is a college in my own county where general science is a subject recognised by the Department as of great importance but it is not recognised as a university or matriculation subject. The students in this college have studied that subject for their leaving certificate and many of them are depending on it as a fourth subject. It is too late in the day now for them to change over to some science subject like botany or physics. They have done a general course embracing all those subjects.
At least for this year, the Minister should recognise that subject as one of the four subjects necessary for qualification in the university grant scheme. As we know, this scheme came in lately, and possibly the Department did not advert to the fact that in particular colleges, subjects were taken perhaps two or three years ago and students who have pursued studies in a subject like general science will find themselves at a disadvantage in that general science cannot be presented as a subject for the leaving certificate with a view to securing a scholarship. Perhaps the Minister might accept it for this year.
In regard to the question of age, I understood that the Minister said that the minimum age was——
I do not want to interrupt the Deputy, but we are at the moment discussing Deputy Lindsay's amendments Nos. 5, 6 and 7 and not the section.
Then I will go on to deal with another matter raised by Deputy Tully and Deputy Lindsay. They appealed to the Minister to accept people who failed to qualify last year because, in one case, they did not succeed in passing Latin, and in another case, Irish. I take it that if those pupils had passed those subjects they would now be in the university. Representations have been made to me to include people in the 1967 leaving certificate examination, their grounds for not being in the university being that they could not afford to go there but they have the necessary four honours. There is a better case for including those people than the people mentioned by Deputy Tully and Deputy Lindsay. I see difficulties right away, in that this could include a very big group. I suppose that this would largely involve a question of money, but if it could possibly be done, it might be found that there were not so many as a number of them would in the meantime have accepted jobs and settled into them. I would ask the Minister to consider this and see if he can include them.
A case has been made for students in the university at present and it was suggested that they should be helped. We would all agree with that and I suppose the Minister would also agree with it. The Parliamentary Secretary made a point about the subjects recognised by the universities and this is a matter which should be tidied up by the Department and the universities. My view is that whatever subjects the Department asks the pupils to be examined in should be accepted by the university. If this matter is not settled, it will become an annual problem for debate here. If the situation continues, there will be the odd pupil with an aptitude in one or two particular subjects who will find himself or herself going for the leaving certificate and having got four honours, being told that one subject is not accepted by the university. We should clear away now all these little anomalies which might arise in the future. Because of the new approach to education, the new orientation between the Department and the university, all these little points should be tidied up now. At the moment art is not accepted as a matriculation subject. I know one or two pupils who have a particular aptitude for art and they are at a disadvantage and I would appeal to the Minister to clear up this problem for the future.
Might I suggest that we now dispose of these amendments, as we are tending to have a general discussion on the section rather than on the amendments?
I do not imagine there could be any objection to that.
I should like to leave it as flexible as possible. I do not think we should be tied down.
All the flexibility should not be on one side.
No, but I should like to leave it as flexible as possible.
While I appreciate the Minister's desire for flexibility, I should like to be in a position, and so, I am sure, would Deputy Tully, Deputy Burke and Deputy Cunningham, when he makes a regulation to say to him: "Come on into the House and we will discuss this."
If Deputy Lindsay comes along to me with a hard case, I should like to be as helpful as possible to Deputy Lindsay.
We are bursting to be helpful to one another and I think that is a good thing, but I still want this to be under regulation rather than simply by rules made by the Minister, about which we would have to go in privately, in a representative way, as opposed to raising it here in the House, and I do not see what objection the Minister can have to making regulations.
If there is one thing this debate reveals, it is the need for flexibility. That is why I framed the Bill in this way. I should not like to be tied down by regulations that would prohibit me——
Surely the Minister can have a saving clause. He can have as much flexibility as he likes in the regulation so long as he allows me to cross-examine him.
As a result of the exchange of views and the various points made——
I do not want to interrupt the Deputy, but I am trying to dispose of the amendments at this stage. After that, there will be a general discussion on the section.
I am on the regulations. The point made by the Minister is a very good point. We are going through a transitional period and it would be better to have as much flexibility as possible. Regulations are very essential for the guidance of society, but we are breaking new ground here and, judging by the points made by Deputy Lindsay, Deputy Tully and Deputy Cunningham, the Minister has a good case. He has implied that he will consider these things. I have the same types of cases as those mentioned. We would not be slow in asking the Minister to go further back, but he would need more money and he is completely tied by finance in all this. I know, too, that no matter how far back he may try to go, he will displease someone. In the case made by Deputy Lindsay, where a person has not gone to university but is still studying a particular subject, that is exactly where the Minister can be flexible, provided he is not tied too much by regulations. We would all like to give all students at university the same status in the same way as we have given the same status to secondary school pupils. The Minister has assured us that he has gone as far as he can.
He has not. Do not be tying the Minister's hand. He has not said that at all. As a matter of fact, the Minister is more flexible than Deputy Burke.
Times change and we have to change with them. Peculiar things have happened in our time too. We should have as much flexibility as possible. Deputy Lindsay wants regulation. If it is regulation, then the Minister can do nothing except in accordance with regulation. That would be a retrograde step.
I do not think it would be retrograde at all. I am quite prepared to accept the Minister's desire for flexibility, but there is nothing in the world to prevent his having flexibility in a regulation, about which we can question him openly in the House, and I am sure he has no objection to being questioned here about regulation.
I want to be free to meet Deputy Lindsay on the presentation of a good case by Deputy Lindsay.
Not alone should justice be done but it should be seen to be done. That is why I would like to have this regulation. I do not like this matter of turning out different forms—1, 2, 3 and 1a and 1b. They pile up and multiply to the disadvantage of everybody concerned, whereas, if we had regulations, with a saving clause in respect of anything in relation to which the Minister wants to have a saving clause, then the Minister can have that. But I should like to think that Parliament in voting moneys for this purpose should be free to question the regulations made for the purpose of spending those moneys. It is not an unreasonable demand.
It would be more inhibiting than the situation heretofore.
I do not think it would be inhibiting. We know how seldom regulations are the subject matter of debate in this House. If a regulation is made and laid before the House, and no question is raised on it within the prescribed 21 days, then I have no case for complaint afterwards and neither has any other Deputy. I have been ruled so much out of order in other amendments that I feel very strongly that this is so much in order and so much in line with what social justice requires that we should have this regulation. I do not want to have any acute differences of opinion in this matter because this is something in which there should be maximum agreement with the maximum of patience and goodwill.
Deputies
Hear, hear.
It is for that reason I would press upon the Minister that I would very much like to have the ideas in these amendments accepted. I see nothing wrong with them.
I will look at the matter between now and Report Stage, but my mind is against it on the basis of providing myself with the greatest degree of flexibility.
It is to be hoped time will modify that view. On the Minister's undertaking to have a look at amendment No. 5, I withdraw it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendments Nos. 6 and 7 not moved.
Section 2 agreed to.
SECTION 3.
I move amendment No. 8:
In page 3, lines 8 and 9, to delete "towards the cost to the corporation or council of a scheme" and to substitute "in respect of assistance under the Irish Universities Act, 1908, and in respect of scholarships and continuing scholarships".
This is a drafting amendment.
Amendment agreed to.
Section 3, as amended, agreed to.
SECTION 4.
Question proposed: "That section 4 stand part of the Bill."
We have already had a discussion on section 4 on the Money Resolution.
We have.
Question put and agreed to.
SECTION 5.
Question proposed: "That section 5 stand part of the Bill."
Again, we covered this ground on the Money Resolution.
We did, but will the Minister undertake to have another look at the scheme in this respect?
Yes, and we can have it on Report Stage.
Question put and agreed to.
Section 6 agreed to.
SECTION 7.
Question proposed: "That section 7 stand part of the Bill."
I should like to see some other person adjudicating on this.
We discussed this on section 1.
It would tend to create complaints by reason of the fact that the Minister is the political head of the Department. I should prefer to have some sort of academic tribunal.
That would complicate matters. However, we can have another look at it on Report Stage.
Question put and agreed to.
Sections 8 and 9 agreed to.
SECTION 10.
Amendment No. 9, in the name of Deputy Lindsay, has been ruled out of order.
Amendment No. 9 not moved.
I move amendment No. 10:
In page 4, lines 15 and 16, to delete "Local Authorities (Higher Education Grants)" and substitute "Higher Education Grants".
Has the Minister any particular objection to it?
I will look at it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Section 10 agreed to.
TITLE.
Amendment No. 11, in the name of Deputy Lindsay, has been ruled out of order.
I have never been so much out of order.
Orderly disorderliness.
Amendment No. 11 not moved.
Title agreed to.
Bill reported with amendments.
Next Stage?
Next Wednesday.
Wait a moment. This morning the Taoiseach announced that Wednesday and Thursday would be devoted entirely to the Amendment of the Constitution Bills.
There will be a tea-break on Wednesday.
In view of the attitude of the Minister for Education today, I am prepared to agree to that.
I am as anxious as anybody in the House to see this Bill through, but I am just as anxious to see that Deputy Boland is given the opportunity of testing the country on the Constitution Bills.
Is that not agreed?
It is agreed.
The Bill we are now discussing will not take long on Report Stage.
We are anxious to get the Constitution Bills——
Provided you do not continue to obstruct their passage.
This is not the kind of conversation likely to lead to agreement. If the bull in the china shop goes into operation——
He will be in the restaurant.
Report Stage ordered for Wednesday, 5th June, 1968.