Dáil Éireann debate -
Tuesday, 27 Apr 1976

Vol. 290 No. 1

Death of a Member. - Private Members' Business: National University Statute: Motion.

Mr. Wilson

I move:

That National University of Ireland Statute CLXXVIII be and is hereby disallowed.

I think the best service I could do the House is to explain what statute 178 is, or rather what it adds to the statute content which it replaces. In chapter I, sub-paragraph (g) of that statute bachelor of technology is added to the list of degrees in the Faculty of Engineering and Architecture of the National University of Ireland. Sub-paragraph (h) adds bachelor of commercial studies to the list of degrees in the Faculty of Commerce. In chapter II bachelor of commercial studies and bachelor of technology are added to the list of primary degrees. In this chapter, 12 terms are ordered to be kept after matriculation for these two degrees. The keeping of 12 terms and the passing of the appropriate prescribed examinations is also demanded.

The reason for this motion to disallow is that we on this side of the House have maintained that the degrees which this statute would empower, if it gets past the House, the National University of Ireland to confer on students of the National Institute of Higher Education in Limerick and Dublin, whenever it is a reality, or more of a reality than it is now, should be conferred by the National Council for Educational Awards, a council which is already established and which would be in a position to confer these degrees. Before I go any further in dealing with this, that is, the substance of our case, that the National Council for Educational Awards is the appropriate degree-awarding council for the disciplines concerned, I want to say that our understanding of the matter is that the National Council for Educational Awards would lay down standards which would be capable of attracting international recognition, not merely an inbred one, not merely a local one, not merely a national one, which is important, but also one which would attract formal recognition of standard from abroad. There is hardly any reason to state to the House what prompted me to put down this motion to disallow because the whole country knows that the Minister and the Government have made an appalling mess of the whole Limerick situation.

Minister for Education (Mr. Richard Burke)

Rubbish.

Mr. Wilson

To put the hypocrisy of the Minister before the House, I should like to quote from Volume 278, column 95, from a debate which we had on third-level education. The Minister said unctuously:

The National Coalition Government hold it as a priority that power must be vested in the people and that they must have a voice in the formulation of policy in relation to their needs.

If the Minister stood by the Treaty Stone in Limerick and emitted those words at present I wonder how many gardaí it would take to protect him from the wrath of the people of Limerick, because they are fed up with that kind of talk, not backed up by action. There is hardly anybody in Limerick satisfied with the Minister's arrangement, with the imposition that the Minister placed upon the National University of Ireland to bring in statute 178 to enable the university to confer degrees which should be conferred by the National Council for Educational Awards.

We have had this discussion on and off since December, 1974. We have had statements from the Ministers for Education, Industry and Commerce and Foreign Affairs, all showing why the National University of Ireland should confer the degrees in the National Institute for Higher Education. It is difficult to summarise what those Ministers argued, but I could possibly summarise by saying that both the Minister for Education and the Minister for Industry and Commerce made a great virtue of a unified system; that they were abolishing a binary system, that they were anti-binary and pro-unified system at third level. They talked a lot about traditional institutions and new institutions and how they were going to unify them. We contend that their proposals are not doing anything of the kind. We are contending that what they are doing at the final stage in the institute in Limerick is bringing in a university degree unsuited to the type of education being provided there, putting it as a cap on the system that obtains there. We heard that this system was to enable student mobility. Student mobility all right but not the kind of mobility I thought the Minister was talking about where there could be transfers from university colleges to Limerick and vice versa. The mobility is the mobility of the students protesting against the mess which the Minister has made of their college and of their qualifications.

How can any Minister contend that what has been done is a breaking down of the traditional isolation of the technological sector from the old university sector? There is no such process even in train in what the Minister has done up to now. The Minister for Industry and Commerce said that we on this side of the House were basing our policy on a purely binary system which obtains in Britain, that he was sorry to see this, that we were looking at a society and an economic structure that is on the point of collapse, and that we should look elsewhere for our models. Of course the model was the model which he himself and the Cabinet sub-committee thought up.

I have looked elsewhere, and I would like to tell the House what I saw when I looked elsewhere. The Minister made his case very strongly about a sick and ailing Britain and indicated that this was because Britain had a certain type of third-level education, and if it had the one that Deputy Keating, Minister for Industry and Commerce, advocated this would not happen. I would like to take the Minister for Education and the Minister for Industry and Commerce on a short Cooks tour of higher education, and I think I will show them that in many countries the universities are not involved in the awarding of degrees in many important branches of the technological sector in education.

We will start with the Soviet Union. There are 44 universities in the Soviet Union out of 794 higher education establishments. The universities are involved with only 10 per cent of higher education enrolments. The 750 non-university institutes train specialised executives for the economy in technology. There are 227 such institutes of which six are V.T.U.Z. factories or factories with higher technical institutes attached to them. There are 105 institutes of agriculture, in which the universities play no part. There are 99 called medicine institutions; they are mainly for the training of medical personnel, but 172 are involved in physical education. There are 217 institutes of education that have nothing to do with the universities. There are 47 fine arts institutes. The average strength of these institutes we are talking of—and I want to underline the message that they are non-university—is that of about 5,000 students, about half of them are full-time students. Obviously having a university and a non-university sector in the Soviet Union is not a source of economic weakness there, as the Minister for Industry and Commerce would have us believe is the case in Britain.

We will take Japan, no slouches in the technological world either. There are universities and non-universities in Japan also, higher technical establishments known as—as I am sure Deputy O'Malley could tell me, having visited Japan, and consequently must be an expert—Tankidaiguku and other technical colleges as well. There are also specialised non-university establishments for the training of particular professions such as health officers, dieticians, nurses and so on. There are 307 universities with a wide range of faculties, and then the Tankidaiguku are for courses in technology, domestic economy, education, literature and so forth. Will the Minister for Industry and Commerce or his satellite in this matter, the Minister for Education claim that the technology of Japan suffers by not having the universities validate all final third-level education? Every transistor, every Yamaha, every Toyota all over the world, will disprove him if that is his contention.

The Minister for Industry and Commerce also made a great to-do about Sweden, and admittedly a very high percentage—I think it must be as high as over 90 per cent—of the third level is placed in the universities in Sweden. But even in Sweden there is a signficant non-university higher education section, dealing with agriculture—I think we had visits by the Department of Education to Sweden on a considerable basis over the years—also providing paramedical education, education for journalists at third non-university level, education for teachers, for the army, for customs officers, air traffic officers and so on.

What about the six original EEC members and the non-university higher education in those states? Certain Ministers seemed to be saying: "Here is this poor old crumbling Britain to the east of us tottering to an early grave because of the mistakes it has made"—not having the wisdom of the Minister for Industry and Commerce to guide it of course and because of what he called the system that the Fianna Fáil Party had advocated. But I am afraid that more or less—and I use those words deliberately—the same kinds of option are found in many other countries. In Germany, Belgium, France, The Netherlands, a whole range of higher establishments in which the university is not involved at all have been created, some of them even quite recently.

Take Germany, for example, and particularly non-graduate engineers attending about 150 ingenieuraka-demien. The final examination confers the title of engineer. An interesting point about this and one that is relevant to all this talk we had about mobility in this country is that those who do the non-graduate engineering course and perform well in their finals —they are entitled to be called engineers when they qualify—may enter the tecnische hochschule which trains the professional graduate engineers. There is mobility there even though there are two separate sectors. There is a university sector and a non-university sector. In this system as well there is a possibility of getting the equivalent of a leaving certificate, the abitur, other than in the normal way, and there is an element there of a second chance education. This is an area where the system that the Minister or all the Ministers are trying to impose on us does not obtain. Before I leave Germany, I do not need to emphasise —and the Minister for Industry and Commerce informed me of this the last time I was speaking here—that Germany is well-known for its competence in technology and general engineering.

What about the non-university higher technical education in Belgium? There are 230 establishments providing for as many as 40,000 students. They study for engineering technician diplomas, diplomas in agriculture, chemicals, diplomas in radio and electronics, construction, business and accountancy, all in the field we are thinking about. They get diplomas as interpreters and translators, merchant navy and pilot certificates and diplomas in specialised education. I would like to call the Minister's attention to that as well because we do need a diploma in specialised education. In a written reply to me some time ago he told me that he was not giving out certificates or diplomas to people doing diplomas in specialised education in this country. Some of the courses that I have been mentioning in the case of Belgium are four-year courses corresponding in time exactly to the period covered by a student in the Institute in Limerick.

Take France, where there is a little trouble at the moment, as the House is aware, because some of the students think that they are going to be directed into certain educational channels, not for their own good or their own development but for the development of the people who will employ them. I am not going to deal with that because it is not relevant to what we are discussing here, but I want to mention the non-university scene in France.

Non-university higher education of a very high level—of course there are technical difficulties about definition here—is provided in technology, in agriculture and in commerce. Notable are the three National Institutes of Applied Science in Lyons, Rennes and Toulouse. The Ecole Polytechnique in Paris and a whole lot of those ècoles under the various Ministers are all non-university. They do not damage the economy of France by not being under the umbrella of the university. There are over 30 private engineering schools whose diplomas are recognised by the French Government and by the State. There are non-university schools of agriculture and veterinary surgery. The Minister for Industry and Commerce might be glad to hear about that. I am sure the cattle in France, those lovely Charolais we import, do not suffer anything by the fact that the veterinary surgery faculty is not under the university umbrella or the degree is not conferred by a university. Higher schools of commerce and private dental schools are also involved in this third-level, non-university, higher education. Up to 70,000 students get their education in such establishments.

The Netherlands have non-university education covering higher secondary, technical and commercial subjects, including schools of seamanship and textiles. There are schools of agriculture and domestic science schools including schools for the training of dieticians, business schools and hotel industry schools, and schools for social education. Incidentally, I am wondering about the degree in hotel management that was sanctioned for the RTC in Galway some time ago. Is it the Minister's intention to confer a degree of bachelor of technology on a person trained to run a hotel, or is it the other one, bachelor of commercial studies?

I adduce these examples because there was an attempt to brainwash this House and the country into thinking that if the National Council for Educational Awards were to confer the terminal degrees in the National Institute for Higher Education that would be in some way perpetuating a system which is wrong. They would in some way be damaging the economy of the country.

The Minister for Education himself in a debate here on this question stated that it was false to pretend that he was not behind the Government's proposals and decisions with regard to third-level education, that he was fully behind them. It was thought before that that the proposals that came from his Department were turned down by the sub-committee of the Cabinet and finally by the full Cabinet and that the Minister for Education was a reluctant proposer of the policy to the House and to the country. However, he is on record as saying that he was behind the Government policy, that he was defending it, that he thought it was the right thing. As this policy demands that the university should confer these degrees, and leave an area of study without any degree, and indeed leave it without any degree in the National Institute for Higher Education, the Minister must stand accused of being completely insensitive to the institute in Limerick.

The Minister for the Gaeltacht must be trying to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds, stating that he wants for Limerick what the students and what the staff of the institute want.

Mr. O'Donnell

I never mentioned the staff.

Mr. Wilson

The Minister for the Gaeltacht said that he wants for the National Institute for Higher Education what the students want for that institute, and what the students want is not what the Minister for Education is giving them. What the students said to me in discussion was that they wanted the National Council for Educational Awards, through the Chair, to confer the degree on them, and if the Minister for the Gaeltacht wants to get angry and wants to be very precise in what he said I would like him to tell this House whether he is or is not in favour of the National Council for Educational Awards conferring this degree. I will give way to him if he wants to make a statement on it now.

Mr. O'Donnell

Did the Deputy read my statement in the paper over the weekend?

Mr. Wilson

I was making way for the Minister for the Gaeltacht who intervened angrily. I repeated what the students said to me and I have asked the Minister. Perhaps he will have an opportunity later on of clearing the air and letting us know whether he is or is not in favour of what the students want in the National Institute.

We have been over the whole area of third level non-university education time and again. I want to state the principles upon which we act. Firstly, we want this institute in Limerick and the one in Dublin, to thrive and flourish; to earn for itself a reputation here and to earn for its qualifications international recognition. We want for it an opportunity to grow its muscles and to grow in strength. We think it is premature to be forcing it into any connection with the universities as they exist as of now. We would hope that there could be a development, as there was in Glasgow, from a technological college to a university college later on but that did not happen in four years. We hope that, even at this late stage, the Minister will recognise that he has made a mistake, will go back to the Cabinet and say that this is not the way to go about it and this is not the time, irrespective of the long-term plans of the people who inspired this policy. We all know who they are and these may be very laudable long-term plans.

We all agree on the importance of technology. The big point of difference is that on this side of the House we are not conceding that at any time the technological sector was in any way disfavoured. In fact, from this side of the House it was very much favoured. We maintain that one is not favouring it by conferring a university degree at the final level on some of the students who have finished some of the courses. We are saying that to finance that sector and give it the equipment, the teacher-student ratio and the money to develop is the best approach. Give it time.

I should like to read a very significant statement into the record of the House. It is from a publication of University College, Cork called "Institutional Arrangements for Awarding Degrees" and it is highly relevant. The publication is dated July, 1975. The final paragraph of the introduction in that publication reads:

This document is being issued after deliberations by the Academic Staff Association, all the Faculties, the Academic Council and the Governing Body of UCC.

Discussing the NCA and degrees this body from UCC which was asked to assess Limerick later on behalf of the NUI came up with important remarks. The Government in involving the National University of Ireland, particularly University College, Cork indirectly, have brought a certain amount of university bashing and odium on the universities which they do not deserve. The Minister is responsible for these attacks because he involved them in this. They should not have been brought into it at all; they are completely blameless but the Minister and the Government in their decisions more or less forced this kind of acrimony into the open. There are now certain interests saying that Cork does not like Limerick and all that kind of small talk. I regret and decry that. It should never have happened; the responsibility is with the Government. I shall now quote from the document I referred to:

(a) This is a system specially designed to cater on a national scale for an important specific need, i.e. to deal with third-level areas which have grown up outside the Universities. It has the advantage of being specially designed for its task. It is working successfully in other countries and is already in operation here. It does not deflect any institutions from their main purposes or entangle them in unnecessary organisational structures. It can use the services of persons from any sphere in this country or from abroad.

(b) As it is the NCEA system that is envisaged for the award of certificates and diplomas, obviously there would be a fuller use of the NCEA organisation if it were to cater for degrees also.

I ask the House to remember where this statement is coming from.

As it is proposed by the Government, a combination of NCEA for diplomas and University responsibility for degrees would lead to a considerable overlap in the work of recognising institutions and their courses. The distinction as between diploma approval and degree approval is not clear-cut, in that for the purpose of degrees University approval of courses would have to extend to prerequisites for the final year courses and so there would be duplicate assessment and approval of diploma-level courses involved.

(c) This system can respond well to change and has a distinctive feature in that those involved are concerned with the approval of courses and examining, but do not participate in the teaching or carry the main burden of the examining. This enables its range to be truly national as it is a factor which copes well with the problem of distance.

(d) Given an opportunity to establish and prove itself, there is no reason why its qualifications could not have genuine status and a wide acceptance.

(e) Even at present, several individual members of University staff are involved in the work of the NCEA through membership of the Council itself and of its boards/committees, and through participation in course and examination assessment, though it must be emphasised that this does not constitute direct institutional involvement by the Universities. If such institutional involvement were thought desirable it could be achieved in a number of ways:

That is the considered opinion of a group from the university college which was deputed by the National University of Ireland Senate to examine the possibility of the National University of Ireland conferring degrees in Limerick. I am asking the House to disallow statute 178. Of course, I am referring specifically to the bachelorship of technology and of commercial studies as incorporated in that status.

I am repeating my request to the Minister to bring in a Bill to establish a National Council for Educational Awards on a statutory basis, to give it power to confer, as well as certificates and diplomas, degrees. In this he will be ad unum with students and staff of the National Institute for Higher Education in Limerick and, indeed, with Deputy Coughlan from the city of Limerick who does not agree with the Minister at all on this matter. I hope he votes for me when this is put to a division tomorrow night. He has also listened to the pleas of all the Deputies from Limerick—Deputies O'Malley, Collins, Herbert and Deputy Noonan on this point for some time. I asked the Minister to give the institute a chance to establish its standard and its place nationally and internationally. He can do so by refusing sanction or by disallowing this statute.

Mr. O'Malley

This is the most eloquent silence I have ever heard in my life. I wish the people of Limerick could hear that silence.

Mr. Richard Burke

Fill it yourself, you are so eloquent.

Mr. O'Malley

Am I mixing my metaphors if I say that that silence speaks for itself? That is the reply to Deputy Wilson's case.

Mr. Richard Burke

He had no case.

Mr. O'Malley

It is necessary when you come into these motions on the NIHE in Limerick that you prepare in advance because you are liable, if you are on this side of the House, to find yourself talking half or three-quarters of an hour before you had expected to. It is extremely revealing but not surprising that when this motion on the NIHE in Limerick is before the House, we fail to get a speaker on it. I sympathise with them that they are in a situation which is indefensible. They know it is indefensible just as much as Deputy Wilson or I, or any of the students or staff in Limerick know, and just as much as the Mayor of Limerick, the five Labour councillors in Limerick and various other people know. Deputy Coughlan said on the 18th February, 1976, column 353 of the Official Report:

As a man who has been more closely associated with this than anyone else in the House, I agree with what Deputy O'Malley said. Everything he said is just and right. As a parent of a student living in that area—my daughter is attending there—the Minister should let us know what he has in mind——

Deputy Coughlan was afterwards not allowed to speak. The last motion was like this one in that there was a failure on the part of anybody on the Government side of the House to offer to speak, although they were given the opportunity to do so. I wish to preface my remarks by a quotation from what I think is the most relevant document of all, that is the report of the Higher Education Authority dated 20th March, 1969, in relation to the field which we are now discussing:

In view of the difference in genesis and purpose between a university and a technological educational institution for the latter to have its curriculum and methods conform to the requirements of those of a university would be a departure on its part from its raison d'être. It would as well be very difficult if not impossible for it to cast itself adequately and properly in such a new role.

That report is dated 20th March, 1969, which is seven years ago. It is certainly professional. It could have been written yesterday in relation to the precise problem that has been created by the Minister for Education and the Government in third-level technological education. It sums up the whole thing perfectly. It says that what the Minister for Education is trying to force down the throats of the students and staff at the NIHE in Limerick is just not on, and it shows why it is not on. It sums up far more eloquently than I could what I had been trying to say the last time I spoke on one of these motions. It said it as long ago as 1969. It was as a result of this report that the then Government took the decisions which they did and which met with some opposition at the time, to establish the NIHE in Limerick. That decision has been thoroughly vindicated by the extraordinary success of the institute, which was way beyond the hopes or dreams of those who established it, and which proved itself in an extraordinarily short time. The problem in this debate is that you are coming down with potential quotations because there is nobody, except for a few university people, who has written or spoken about this matter who has not been unanimous in condemning what the Government and the Minister for Education are doing to this institute in Limerick. I came across an article dated 13th April last by Dr. Roy Johnson who is the science and technology correspondent of The Irish Times which said:

The February issue of the IDA news came out strongly in support of the original N.I.H.E. concept: that of theoretical understanding reflected in practical competence in relevant industrial technologies.

He goes on later to say: "Yet apparently it is possible for a Minister for Education..." and then he goes into a long parenthesis about the Minister's attitude to bishops and clerical control and things which are not relevant to this.

Yet apparently it is possible for a Minister for Education to meddle destructively with the third-level system in its key technological areas, about which he visibly understands nothing, nor is he apparently teachable. This is in the face of the advice of the CII and the IDA, whose main concern is the industrialisation of the country with a technologically competent work force.

He goes on to say that "The USI in opposing the downgrading of the NCEA was expressing a correct instinctive understanding". He finishes the article by saying:

With the critical forces ranged against him——

that is against the Minister

——as they are, it is feasible to force the restoration of the status of the NCEA, the vindication of the stand of the NIHE on its original principles and the resignation of Mr. Burke. If this does not happen the embryonic technological revolution we are beginning to discern will abort and the present Government will be to blame.

I have no reason to believe that Dr. Roy Johnson has any particular love for Fianna Fáil or for the ideas which we put into practice in Limerick in the establishment of the NIHE. Therefore he would have no reason to have any particular bias in favour of our ideas as put into practice in Limerick at the NIHE but he comes out absolutely clearly in favour of the whole idea and is shocked and horrified at what the Government are endeavouring to do.

There has been a spate of letters recently to the public press from students expressing their unanimous view. There has been a letter signed by the chairman and secretary of the ASTMS on behalf of the staff setting out their views which also are unanimous and which were in total conflict with the proposals of the Minister and the Government. I do not wish to quote those letters in full. Their contents are fairly well known. In addition, there was a letter signed by the Mayor of Limerick, Councillor T. Coughlan—in brackets, the letters "Lab."—by the chairman of Limerick County Council as well as by the president of the Chamber of Commerce and the head of virtually every organisation in Limerick city and county and indeed in that whole region.

Mr. Griffin

Jealousy will not get the Deputy anywhere.

Mr. Wilson

Was the letter signed by the Minister for the Gaeltacht?

Mr. O'Malley

The views expressed in that letter were identical with the views expressed in this debate on the last occasion both by Deputy Wilson and me. They were identical with the views of the students and staff of the NIHE. The letter expressed much disquiet with what the Government were proposing and called on the Minister to revert to the original situation that has existed at the NIHE since the outset. A large number of students attended a meeting of the Limerick Corporation a couple of weeks ago at which this letter was read and the 17 members of the corporation were invited to sign it. The Mayor had signed it already. All the Fianna Fáil and Labour members together with the two independent members signed, but the Fine Gael members declined to sign. That matter has been commented on elsewhere.

Last night I inquired from the Mayor at the meeting of the corporation whether the deputation from the council, and which had been agreed on at the previous meeting, had been arranged and, if so, what date was the arrangement for. I was informed by the Mayor that he had 'phoned the Minister's office on four occasions seeking a date on which the deputation would be met but without success. He informed me that he had written a letter to which he had received an acknowledgement but no more. Therefore, it appears that this deputation, who wished sincerely to express their views, will not be received or that, if they will be received, it will be at some future date.

Notwithstanding the unanimous views of virtually everybody concerned with this matter we have the situation whereby the Minister for Education is pressing ahead with his proposals to the extent that he has now forced the NUI, which, I am sure, would not wish to have anything to do with the whole wretched affair, to make a statute which is now on the table of the House and which the motion in Deputy Wilson's name is seeking to disallow. Our only purpose in seeking to disallow it is in so far as it creates these two so-called degrees for Limerick—Bachelor of Commercial Studies and Bachelor of Technology. The Bachelor of Commercial Studies course is supposed to include business studies, the administrative system and European studies and appears to have little or nothing in common with the bulk of those disciplines. There is a letter in The Irish Times of April 13th from a number of final year students in European Studies who say, and I quote:

....We are sure the powers that be in UCC would object strenuously to having their courses in Medicine, Veterinary Science and Dentistry leading to a undifferentiated degree in Paramedical Studies !! No doubt that would seem as outrageous a thing to them as a degree in Commercial Studies is to us.

That is a fair statement of the position. The students end their letter with the following paragraph:

We are not third-rate students and will refuse to accept degrees which would brand us as such. The Minister for Education has a moral obligation to ensure that the conditions under which students went to the NIHE four years ago, in good faith, are honoured.

That brings me to the position of the students in this situation, approximately 80 of whom are due to graduate in June. These students entered the institute in September, 1972, under terms which were laid down specifically. They were made aware of those terms but they chose to study at the NIHE on the basis that the terms on which they were entering the institute would apply to their four years of study and to the awarding of degrees at the end of their term of study if they were found worthy of degrees. However, before they finished that course the rules of the game were changed radically. The students have told me that if they had been aware that after three or three-and-a-half years the Minister would change basically the whole concept of the institution and force it in under the wing of UCC as a constituent college of the NUI, the bulk of the students would not have chosen to study at Limerick.

Mr. O'Kennedy

Hear, hear.

Mr. O'Malley

Because of what has happened they consider themselves to be there now under false pretences although what they were told at the start was told to them in all good faith and it could not have been foreseen then that the Minister for Education would change the whole situation at this time. No blame attaches to anybody who told the students at the start what the terms were. Most of the students who are due to graduate in June were offered places in one or more Irish universities but declined these offers because of what was being offered to them at the NIHE at Limerick. The new system appealed to them. It was different from and superior to what they might have found in the universities. It was on the lines of what they wanted rather than merely the traditional sort of academic study that has been known in our universities where there is no method of assessment of a student other than the written examination at the end of each year and a major examination at the end of the third or fourth year, as the case may be.

These students have now gone through three-and-three-quarter years of a unique and different system under which they have been assessed every week throughout that whole period, under which their degrees have already to a very great extent been actually decided upon. Unless they go mad altogether in the last month or two, they cannot either do very much better or very much worse than what they have already been assessed on. The whole system has been very successful. The students have taken to it. The staff have taken to it. Above all—and this is most important—the co-operative employers who have taken in students for a nine-month period in their second or third year as part of this whole new system have been absolutely delighted with it. They have been delighted with the students, with their work, with their capabilities, with their training, with their adaptability and with their whole general suitability.

So much so that many of those students were made very lucrative offers by their employers under this co-operative scheme not to go back to finish their degrees but to stay where they were. They were given lucrative offers and inducements to stay because they were so useful and so successful. I think every one of them declined the offers on the grounds that they would be better off to go back and get the honours degree which nearly all of them at that stage knew they were going to get from the NCEA and from nobody else. They did not want it from anybody else then and they do not want it today.

Look at those students today. They do not know where they are going. They will be out of that place in six weeks' time. Some of them will get no degree at all unless they go back for another year or a year-and-a-half. More of them will get pass degrees. Apparently none of them will get honours degrees of any kind. None of them will come out with what they are entitled to come out with. None of them will come out with what was laid down at the start that they should come out with. The entire system has been changed. The whole atmosphere in that institution today is incredibly different from what it was a year or two ago.

Mr. Richard Burke

Of course it is.

Mr. O'Malley

It is sickening to see the drop in morable, the despondency and the disappointment on every face today compared with the expectation and the excitement in that place a year or more ago before they knew this was going to happen. No longer is there a feeling that they are in a unique institution, that they are doing something different, that they are achieving something very worthwhile. There is now a feeling that they wish to God they had never gone there. It is a criminal disgrace that they are put in this situation.

The amount of personal worry and hardship caused to those 80 students and to all the other students in their earlier years because they will face the same problem—it is just a bit further away for them—and to the parents of those students who, in many cases, made considerable sacrifices in order that those students could spend four years at Plassey in Limerick does not seem to matter to the Minister for Education and the Government. They have inflicted all this on them and brought misery, despondency and despair where previously there was hope and expectation and joy, one might say, at the new experience they were going through and which they were finding so successful and with which they were so compatible.

As I said earlier, almost all of these students could have gone to one or other of the universities in 1972 or 1973. They are now in a totally impossible position. I want to emphasise this because it has been taken up wrongly in a number of newspapers. The situation which exists in Limerick today is of the making of this Government——

Mr. Wilson

Correct.

Mr. O'Malley

——as of 16th December, 1974, and what followed after that.

Mr. Wilson

It has nothing to do with the universities.

Mr. O'Malley

It is of the making of the Government. I regret that inevitably UCC have come in for a lot of criticism in Limerick about this whole matter. I had to criticise them myself. I felt it was my duty to do so. As Deputy Wilson pointed out here earlier, the position of UCC should be seen for what it is. They did not ask to get involved with the NIHE in Limerick. They did not ask to be brought in to sit upon the NIHE Limerick. They were asked by the Minister for Education under the Act of 1908, or whatever it is, to go in and conduct a survey. If I may advert to it, incidentally they conducted a survey on the linguistic abilities of the students there and carried it out on a written basis totally even though the students have been trained for four years in oral linguistic skills primarily. However, that is by the way.

They were put in there by the Minister and told to carry out a survey and to consider what sort of degrees they could award, and so on. They found a system which was very different from their own, a system which they admitted they could not assess. They were not competent to assess it. I do not think they deny that. Nonetheless they carried out an assessment based on their own methods. They assessed it on the basis that if this were an institution like UCC they felt this, that and the other thing about it.

It is not an institution like UCC and has no wish to be. The students who went there in 1972 went there because it was not an institution like UCC. That is why there is such a flagrant breach of faith in the position in which they find themselves today. The rules were changed. The whole situation was changed. This terrible trauma which now afflicts the whole of Plassey in Limerick is caused by the Government and their decision to change the existing situation in Plassey. That has been made clear time and time again by staff, by students, and by everybody else.

Newspapers and others are trying to half help out the Minister by saying: "This is an awful mess and we hope the Minister will be able to solve it". The Minister can solve it by rescinding his own decision and directions in the matter and reverting to the position as it was before he introduced UCC into it. The whole thing would be solved overnight and everybody would be happy. The NCEA could go ahead, as was their intention, and award degrees to whatever students and arising out of whatever courses they think appropriate.

They were blocked in making their assessment recently because UCC have been in there for the past six months or whatever it is. There is no question of an unfortunate situation existing and the Minister trying to solve it. He is setting up a meeting between the NUI Senate and the governing body of the NIHE. This is the most useless exercise of all time. That is not what is needed.

Mr. Richard Burke

Of course it is.

Mr. O'Malley

The NUI Senate and the governing body of the NIHE do not want to have anything to do with one another. They are forced into that relationship by the Minister. If the Minister had not ordered the NUI to do all this and to award and validate the degrees, they would not be bothered about what the courses were in Limerick. The NUI Senate have more to do. It is not a matter for them. If they were allowed in the morning by the Minister for Education and the Government to withdraw out of the whole Limerick situation, I am sure they would more than willingly do so. Then the NIHE, the NCEA and the HEA could get along perfectly well together as they were getting along for the past three or three and a half years.

I was criticised in a Cork Examiner leading article today for daring to be critical of the Minister for the Gaeltacht, for pointing out that he was collectively responsible and for asking him to state his position which he had not stated until I asked him. Fair enough, he has now stated it. He stated on the following day that he agrees with the Government and that he is behind them.

If I may end on this note—not that I am worried about the Cork Examiner criticising me for criticising the Minister for the Gaeltacht—in the very issue in which they criticised me for that, on another page they have an article or a news item which is headed “Mayor Strongly Criticises Mr. O'Donnell”. And the Mayor is not me. The reply to that was, of course: “Mayor charged with hypocrisy on NIHE”, and, that is from Fine Gael. If one saw the fighting in Limerick Corporation last evening between the two parties in the rapidly dwindling and declining Coalition, first of all, on the NIHE and subsequently on the economy, employment in Limerick and all the rest of it, it would make even you, Sir, believe what I now firmly believe, that this Government have very nearly had their day.

But I beg and appeal, for the sake of all those students in Limerick, the Minister for Education and the Minister for the Gaeltacht—who is here even if he remains silent—as the dying kick of this Government, to do one good thing, admit that this silly nonsense they are at is a mistake, go back and revert to the position that obtained when everyone was happy, and when everyone will be happy again.

Mr. O'Kennedy

I notice that the Minister does not appear to be available at this stage.

Mr. Wilson

What is it they call that in soccer, when one tries to make the other team play off-side—an off-side trap, but one has to have a team.

Mr. O'Kennedy

Exactly, one has to have a team. This is where the Government's position on this shows the lack of that most fundamental quality, which is teamwork.

Mr. Wilson

The Minister for Industry and Commerce will be back tomorrow.

Mr. O'Malley

He is the big daddy in this thing; they have to wait for him.

Mr. O'Kennedy

The man who has been taking most of the backlash for some time since the newspapers became less than infatuated with him is the present Minister in the House. I may say I have a considerable amount of sympathy for the Minister's personal position. But it does not demand too much imagination to know the lack of unity and loyalty from which he is suffering within the present Government. I sympathise with the Minister for the manner in which the golden glory boys—those of today rather than of two years ago which was his generation—are able to bask in the sunshine of popularity while he takes the knocks from the media and even from this side of the House. He is entitled to a lot more support and loyalty than he gets there at present. The interest which Members from that side of the House are showing is a measure of their concern.

Let me revert to the history—and it is a very recent one—of the NIHE, the NCEA and the associated developments of the time. In the first instance, it was always recognised that the university concept as such was one based, among other things, on autonomy. This autonomy dictated that universities—and in our term in Government and my period in the Department of Education we had reason to recognise that fact—decided, without reference to what would be the national need, without reference to what would be the national, governmental programme at a particular time, the duration of their courses, their content, the intake of students for their various courses, on the basis that that was consistent with the fundamental concept of a university.

As an example, if a Minister or a Government suggested to them that they were producing, say, too many arts graduates or too many engineers —though that was hardly ever suggested—they could and did come back and say: "That is a function entirely of the university. We shall decided how we develop the disciplines within our third-level university structures". They held, and perhaps they are correct, that that was consistent with the concept central to their position of university autonomy since the establishment of the university notion. Whether they were right or wrong it was fairly evident that Ireland of a few years ago had a new need, possibility and potential which could not be discharged by that concept of autonomy as practised by the universities.

In the confidence that was and will be typical of our party in the country's future and in our young people, we saw this need. Particularly within the concept of the development of the EEC we saw that there existed a great need to develop a new third-level programme which would be wedded very closely to the industrial and agricultural development of our country, having a very practical content in its courses, to ensure that the development of studies within that institute could not operate independent of the economic reality and equally, that economic programming and industrial and agricultural development would be influenced to a very considerable extent by the intake to and commitment of such an institute as the National Institute of Higher Education in Limerick. At the time there were some well-meaning people in Limerick who had the notion—I do not know whether Deputy O'Donnell was one who may have been supporting it because I am not sure how clearly he has a grasp of the whole position at present—who were requesting and even demanding the Fianna Fáil Government for a university in Limerick.

I know that some Deputies on that side of the House at present quite freely and properly supported that notion. I, among others when we were in Government, said no. We recognised that something different was required, not merely for Limerick but, through Limerick, for the country and that would not be the university. We achieved a considerable amount in persuading those people who were properly motivated, though somewhat mistaken, in recognising that it was not a university that was required in Limerick; it was an institute of this nature required for the country. It was no accident that it was to be located in Limerick.

In deference to Fianna Fáil Governments that have gone before us I can say with some degree of pride that the developments in the whole of the mid-western region, in the industrial sector in particular, were syptomatic —what happened in Shannon and in that whole region—of a confidence a Government had in the people. Therefore, to locate this institute in that centre in Limerick was equally consistent with the further confidence our party had then and has now in the development of this great new industrial impetus in that whole area. That institute, located in Limerick, would reap the benefit of a very close association with what was and remains—despite the lack of enthusiasm at present in the Government's approach to it—a very enthusiastic area, full of highly motivated people. We wanted to ensure the maximum interplay between industry, on the one hand, and the institute on the other, the kind of interplay to which Deputy O'Malley referred when he said that these young girls and boys in their practical studies have proven that they are well equipped to play a full role.

I should like to know what the Minister may reply to this. It is no secret that the development of that institute had a very central concept, and that was Ireland's potential in the EEC. There is no university of which I am aware in this country that had that as its central concept; it is understandable that they should not have. There was that central concept in the establishment of that institute—the role we would play in the EEC, to quote from that much quoted 14-point fairytale: how we could maximise our benefits within the Community and, by God, how we have maximised them to the minimum possible extent. I wonder was the Minister aware of that concept when he became involved in this. I wonder was he conscious of what it represented, not just for the area but for our young people and our country's future. The modules of study within the institute were directed towards that concept— a new era in education.

But then a Government lacking in conviction, understanding or, above all else, unity of purpose, failing to understand the basic motivation, suddenly finding there are problems here and there, change the whole rules of the game. It is quite right for Deputy O'Malley to say—and I am sure Deputy Wilson would say the same—that the responsibility for that lies purely and simply with the Government and the Minister who has to answer. I feel sad for him and for a Government, some members of whom I have seen sit silently while he was being unjustly criticised—for instance, at the Labour Party Conference when there was not to be heard one word of defence from his colleagues.

Mr. O'Malley

They knifed him all the time.

Mr. O'Kennedy

I wonder how consistently loyal to him has been the man sitting beside him this evening; there seems to have been a rather late Augustinian conversion. I want to make it clear that I appreciate that one man is taking the brunt of this. I disagree with his approach to it but I think there are some others who should be answerable with him. This may be the basic reason showing why this Government lacks that fundamental quality any self-respecting Irish Government would have which is loyalty to one another.

Turning back to the basic concepts, Deputy O'Malley is quite right when he says that almost all of the present students enrolled on the understanding that they would be doing a course of practical studies which would lead in the end to qualifications conferred by the National Council of Education Awards. The important thing to recognise is not merely the name of the qualification. Nor is it merely whether it comes from a university. It is the content, standing and status of the studies that give to any course the recognition for the end qualification. There are some institutes of higher education in some eastern European countries that do not even trouble to give at the end of their courses of study a degree or anything of that sort but they give recognition through the appropriate authority, and that is not a university.

What we are doing is falling back with no sense of confidence and certainly no awareness of future potential. We are falling back on the old ways of universities established hundreds of years ago when things were very different. Recently I was talking to a university professor from Cork who was originally against involvement but who has apparently changed his mind: "Oh now, I think this is a good idea because I think this association between the institute and the universities will be a great thing. It will make the universities take a whole new look at themselves and see their relevance in the present day". I do not want to name the professor. He had more than an active interest in this and the Minister probably knows what I mean by that. If that is not turning the whole debate on its head what is it doing? If we have to do that for this institute for the purpose of getting the universities to change their ways it is making a sad food of them.

I want now to come back to some other commitments, personal commitments I gave, and I reject the right of any Minister coming after us in Government to climb down on commitments we gave. I gave commitments to students who were starting in the National College of Physical Education which again, not by accident, was being located by the decision of our Government on or near this complex. We wanted to see in that area a whole new exciting development in education and we decided for that reason to locate this college in the same complex. I undertook to those students that they would have their qualifications in the same way as others in the institute from the National Council of Educational Awards and they undertook their studies in the belief that the commitments we gave would be honoured. They were right in that belief. We would have honoured them.

I wonder how the Government coming after us could not be aware of that. Unless there has been a complete change of attitude within the Department the Minister could not but be aware. I wonder how convinced his advisers are about what the Minister is doing in this area. Had he had the most superficial consultation in regard to the understanding the students had from the previous Administration he would have been informed that the students in both the institute and the college of physical education were given an undertaking that they would have from the National Council of Educational Awards, when it was established in statutory form, their respective qualifications. That has all gone. I wonder how that was done. What consultations took place? What regard was had for the students? I can tell the Minister that there are at least half-a-dozen students to my personal knowledge who had very high qualifications in their leaving certificate examination who are in the institute because of my personal recommendation to them to go there on the basis that this was a new development where they could in fact enjoy new challenges and as a result of this course have a much more practical approach to the development of industry and agriculture. Mark you, I believe they would have taken the same decision themselves had we never recommended this to them.

Had we approached the World Bank on the basis now presented by the Government I wonder would that bank have responded with the enthusiasm it did to this new step by a Government which believed in challenge and opportunity. They responded to our proposals and as a result you have in this institute some of the most modern equipment to be found anywhere in these islands. Had what is now being perpetrated by this Government been presented to the World Bank I wonder what their response would have been. This exciting development and these new standards would have percolated right through our whole educational system at first, second and third level. We had convinced the public that this should be the evolution. We took the flak when it had to be taken. We spoke in the crowded halls and convinced the people that comprehensive education was what was essential for this country. Along comes the Minister and introduces a compromise. What we were doing in the institute was part of an overall comprehensive approach at every level of education. What the Minister is doing now is compromising the whole future.

Mr. Richard Burke

Would the Deputy concede for a moment that in fact what I was trying to do was undo what I did not agree with in January, 1973, on the part of my predecessor?

Mr. O'Kennedy

The Minister can deal with that when he comes to reply, if he does reply. I do not know whether he intends to speak or not. The technical colleges and the upgrading of vocational education, the comprehensive and community schools depended to a very considerable extent on the fact that at the top of the tier there would be technological development at third level in institutes such as the National Institute of Higher Education. Unfortunately the Minister broke the top rung of the ladder and in doing that he ensured that no student going through those streams would ever achieve the status or recognition, much less the opportunity, opened up to him by our policy.

It is sad to think that young people of capacity are being denied qualifications of the highest possible level. It is sad to think they are now being told these are not available to them. I have heard a great deal of prating. Coalition Deputies in that region, like Deputy John Ryan in North Tipperary, have said at public meetings that they are concerned about what is happening in Limerick. Where is Deputy John Ryan tonight? Let him come in here and express his concern. It is time we had an end to the soft soap support guaranteed to students when they call on TDs. These Deputies should be in here tonight backing up their support with positive understanding.

Mr. O'Malley

Where is Deputy Coughlan now? They would not let him speak the last night.

An Ceann Comhairle

Order.

Mr. O'Kennedy

They should not undermine the respect young people have for politicians in general. God knows, it is undermined often enough.

Debate adjourned.