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Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 30 Oct 1996

Vol. 470 No. 7

Universities Bill, 1996: Second Stage.

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

It gives me great pleasure to propose the Universities Bill, 1996, to this House. It is the first time in the history of the State that this House has had an opportunity to debate a universities Bill which applies to all the universities.

This Bill recognises the central role which the universities play in society. This role is part of a great European tradition stretching back to the establishment of Plato's Academy in 395 BC. This academy had as its motto "knowledge is a good and worth pursuing in all its forms". From the medieval tradition which built on the foundations laid by the academy, we have inherited the liberal ideal that education goes beyond the transmission of knowledge and concerns itself with development of the full potential of the human intellect. From this ideal comes the broad and vital mission of the university, to cultivate the mind, develop human worth and talent, better the individual and better society. This mission is more necessary than ever in today's world. Knowledge is the basis of progress to a richer culture, greater social justice and harmony and a better quality of life for all.

Universities have a wider and more diverse role in the development of society than ever before. This university legislation recognises the role of the university. It seeks to provide the framework to enable universities to develop the nation's knowledge, extend the nation's cultural heritage and expand the nation's intellectual development as effectively as possible.

The need for this framework of university legislation has been felt for many years. The Green Paper on Education published by the then Fianna Fáil-Progressive Democrats Government in June 1992 proposed legislation to restructure the National University of Ireland; to modernise the legislative framework for the universities and to rationalise the composition and functions of governing authorities.

The stated aim was to provide a framework of legislation which would be more compatible with the role, function and operation of universities in modern society. The White Paper on Education was based on extensive consultation after publication of the Green Paper with all the interests in education, including the university sector. This consultative process included the National Education Convention held in Dublin Castle in October 1993. The Bill derives from the principles and approaches set out in the White Paper which was published in April 1995.

This Bill has three main objectives: the restructuring of the National University of Ireland, provision of revised governance structures, provision of a framework for interaction between the universities and central Government and for accountability to society generally.

In addressing the first objective, the restructuring of the National University of Ireland, this Bill marks another milestone in the history of the National University. The campaign for a university which reflected and promoted the values and traditions of the majority of the Irish people was one of the great educational and political struggles of the last century and the earlier part of this century. The 1908 Act gave birth to the federal National University of Ireland which went on to forge a distinctive and distinguished role in the international arena. My proposals for organisational change are based on proposals made by the NUI itself. Almost 90 years since the NUI was established, each of the constituent colleges will now be placed on the same legal and constitutional basis as other independent, autonomous universities.

I am particularly pleased to be able to bring to this House my proposal to establish the present áecognised college of the NUI at St. Patrick's College, Maynooth as a university within the new NUI structure. The college has been one of the great recent successes of university education in the State. Lay students were first admitted to the faculties of the recognised college in 1966 and since then the student population has grown to more than 4,000. The trustees of St. Patrick's College have shown great foresight and commitment in developing the recognised college and making it a part of the university and third-level education sector. Their support for my proposals for the college has been of critical importance to the provisions now in the Bill.

An important objective of the Bill is to place all universities on a common footing in respect of their relationship with central Government. Under current legislation the State has much stronger regulatory and controlling powers in regard to Dublin City University and the University of Limerick than in the case of the older institutions. Dublin City University and the University of Limerick have now sought to be placed on a statutory basis similar to the older universities. Dublin City University and the University of Limerick have shown impressive growth. Their success has convinced me they should now be placed on an equivalent statutory basis to the other universities.

We are extremely fortunate to have such a diversity of university institutions — from the youngest of which I have just spoken, to the oldest, Trinity College, Dublin, the sole College of the University of Dublin. This university has, for more than 400 years, provided a home for academic endeavour which has attracted national and international recognition. The Universities Bill has been drafted to ensure that Trinity College can thrive and that its long tradition of institutional autonomy and independent academic achievement can continue and prosper. Because of the ancient tradition of the college, it is proposed that its charter will be amended not by this Bill but by a private Act sponsored by the college, in a manner consistent with the provisions of this Bill. I will bring forward the necessary amendments to the Universities Bill on Committee Stage.

This Bill gives practical expression to the principle of pluralism expressed in the White Paper. It provides a statutory framework which affords parity of esteem to all our universities which values their differing history and which has the flexibility to accommodate their differing traditions.

I now turn to the second objective of the Bill, to revise university governance structures. I draw the attention of the House to three aspects of this issue: the flexible framework for partnership on each governing authority; the extent of Ministerial involvement in each governing authority; and the issue of academic councils and academic freedom. In addressing the second objective, revised governance structures, the Bill sets out a framework which will allow each university to devise governing authorities which best suit their own interests.

For the first time, in the colleges of the National University of Ireland academic staff who are not professors, non-academic staff and students, including postgraduate students, will have a right of representation on the governing authority. In addition, the governing authorities will retain representation from the NUI and from local public representatives, thus reflecting the traditions of the NUI.

For the first time, the recognised NUI college at Maynooth will have a governing authority, which will be constituted on the NUI model, but will also include representation from the trustees of St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, thus reflecting the traditions of the recognised college.

In Dublin City University and the University of Limerick graduates will have the potential for representation on the governing authority and students and staff, both academic and non-academic will have the potential for increased representation on the governing authority. In addition, the governing authorities will have representation from the Dublin City University Educational Trust and the University of Limerick Foundation, thus reflecting the importance of these bodies in the emerging traditions of these universities.

Under proposals at present being considered by the college, for the first time in Trinity College non-academic staff and students will have a right of representation on the governing authority and graduates will have the potential for representation on the governing authority. In addition, the governing authority will retain representation from the fellows of the university, thus reflecting the traditions of Trinity College.

The Bill allows for membership of the governing authority of each university by senior academics and administrative staff. It allows for between one and four ministerial nominees on each university governing authority and for outside representation on the governing authority. Most importantly, it allows each university great flexibility, within a broad framework, to choose the governing authority which best reflects its traditions and which will best enhance its governance.

This Bill embodies, in its governance proposals, the White Paper principle of partnership of all relevant interests so that our universities can build on their national and international reputation and success. This Bill has resulted from a process of consultation and dialogue. This dialogue continued after its publication and has been valuable, both in raising areas of valid concern, which I can address, and in allowing me to deal with other areas of concern which have no foundation in fact. In my dialogue with the universities, particularly with the university community at Trinity College, concern was expressed about section 15 (6) which confers on the Government the power to remove the chairperson of the governing authority of a university. This is a valid concern and I intend to amend this provision.

However, I assure the House that, as it stands it could not have extended to removing the Provost as chief officer of Trinity, nor was it ever intended to do so. I further assure the House that, far from limiting the autonomy of Trinity College in respect of its Provost, this Bill will return to the college a power it has not had since the Charter of King Charles I in 1637 — the power to appoint the Provost. At present, this power rests with the Government.

During my consultation with the university communities, a further concern was expressed that the Bill would hugely increase the number of ministerial nominees on university governing authorities. This is not true, as can be seen from consideration of section 14. I can assure the community of the NUI colleges that the number of ministerial nominees on the governing authorities of University College Cork, University College Dublin and University College Galway can be exactly the same under this Bill as at present. I can inform the community at Dublin City University and the University of Limerick that the number of ministerial nominees on each of the governing authorities of these universities will be five fewer than at present. For the community of Trinity College, I understand that, under proposals at present being considered by the college, the Minister for Education may nominate one member of the board and there would be one representative from the education board, when established.

I will dispel any impression that this Bill indicates the Minister intends to take control of the universities. It is my firm intention to ensure that the Bill will not involve one iota more of involvement in the day to day activities of the universities by the Government. I assure the House that I will give generous consideration, in consultation, where necessary, with my Government colleagues, to any amendments which may be necessary to ensure that universities retain their academic freedom in harmony with their accountability to the wider society. The issue of academic freedom is essential and central to the role of the university. Academic freedom lies at the heart of the concept of a university in this State. The Universities Bill respects academic freedom and contains nothing which would hinder the full expression of that freedom by and in our universities. The Bill also underpins institutional freedom — this is the capacity of the universities to conduct their own affairs. By underpinning these freedoms the provisions of this Bill will enhance the capacity of the universities to serve the cause of scholarship and the pursuit of knowledge and in so doing to advance the welfare of our society.

That is why I am convinced that sections 23 to 26 of the Bill, which provide statutory recognition of academic councils, are of key importance. The Bill does provide that every university should have an academic council which will control the academic affairs of the university — a situation which is already a central feature of university life here. Enshrining this in legislation provides an important, statutory guarantee of academic freedom. The Bill further states that the majority of the membership of the academic councils must be made up of the academic staff in the university. Students are also included, and the details will be determined by the governing authority.

I now turn to the third objective of this Bill, provision of a framework for interaction between the universities and central Government and for accountability to society generally. I also wish to address matters of specific importance in the areas of staffing, quality and equality issues.

In considering accountability, we must remember that in the past universities were the preserve of a privileged minority in society, their role and range of studies were limited and the financial support, if any, was modest. This situation has altered dramatically in recent decades. From 4,000 students when the Universities Act was enacted in 1908, student numbers grew to 10,000 in 1960 and to 50,000 in 1996.

Universities now play a crucial role in society as an integral and mainstream part of our education system and are acknowledged, nationally and internationally, as key contributors to social, economic and cultural development in modern society.

An independent university sector is also a guarantor of our freedom in our democratic society. Through their teaching, research and objective and informed criticism, the staff in our universities contribute in a vital way to maintaining a mature democratic society, a society confronted with increasingly complex social, scientific, medical, technological and political challenges.

This Bill will underpin these vital academic and institutional freedoms and will facilitate the universities to continue to serve individual and social needs in the very changed circumstances of contemporary and evolving society.

Section 22 and Chapters 7 and 8 of the Bill contain the provisions on staffing and budgets. The general scheme of these provisions is that the universities will agree a budget with the Higher Education Authority, as they do at present. Excesses over budget will not be permitted unless agreed with the Higher Education Authority and any unauthorised excess must be offset against the budget for the following year. These provisions are a reasonable and prudent mechanism to control the Exchequer expenditure, which is over £220 million this year alone for the university sector.

Section 22 confirms the present situation where the rates for pay, allowances, expenses and pensions of staff are in line with public sector norms. In the case of staffing, the legislation will state for the first time in section 22 that each university will have the right to make its own operational and management decisions relating to its staffing levels, numbers and structure. Each university will also decide under section 33 how it should allocate its budget within the institution. Neither the Minister nor the Higher Education Authority will be empowered to lay down detailed instructions and conditions.

Let me give a further example of how this Bill gives the universities enhanced freedom. Under section 12 (2) of the Higher Education Act, 1971, the Higher Education Authority has the power to make payments to universities in such manner and subject to such conditions as it thinks fit. This is a very sweeping provision, whereas sections 22 and 33 of the Bill set out provisions for non-binding guidelines prepared by the Higher Education Authority after consultation with a university or universities.

As drafted the Bill is already clear that the guidelines are non-binding, but to make it doubly so and to provide reassurance I intend to bring forward a Committee Stage amendment to confirm the position. The amendment will also make it clear that a departure from guidelines will not result in restrictions or conditions on the payment of moneys made to a university.

The keeping of accounts and records for audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General is provided for in section 35. This does not change the current situation. Contrary to some comments, this does not give additional powers to the Comptroller and Auditor General in relation to the universities, nor does it impose additional burdens on them.

I have been asked if private university trusts and funds will come under public scrutiny in this legislation. Will the Higher Education Authority require information on these funds? Will the Government dictate how they are to be spent? I assure the House and the university communities that my concern in this legislation is with public funds, State funds, funds which this year alone amount to more than £200 million in the university sector alone. Under this Bill the Higher Education Authority will not have access to information on the private trusts and funds of universities. The Higher Education Authority will have access only to information which is at present provided by the universities on a non-statutory basis — the accounts of their annual income and expenditure.

There appears to be a genuine fear, fuelled by rumour, among some university staff that this Bill will worsen their pay and conditions. I can assert with absolute conviction that there is nothing in this Bill which could conceivably have this effect. However, in response to the concerns which have been conveyed to me about this I now intend to specifically provide in the Bill a provision to the effect that, for the removal of doubt, it is declared that the tenure, pay, allowances and pensions of existing staff will be no less beneficial after the passing of the Act than before it.

Sections 17 and 18 of the Bill, providing for visitation and suspension, provides for a situation where there is a serious breakdown in the management and operation of a university. I have consulted members of the university communities whose views I respect and who see in these powers a risk to university autonomy, despite the safeguards which are built into this section. I accept their genuine concerns. I assure Deputies that I am giving further thought to this section and I am disposed to bringing forward amendments on Committee Stage which would deal with these concerns expressed to me.

The White Paper lays great emphasis on quality in education. There is general agreement that universities need to have an effective process for evaluating academic standards. These processes exist already. There is a long and honoured tradition of peer review among our universities. There is a tradition of promotion of quality in research and in student education. The approach in section 31 of this Bill is to recognise and support this tradition while specifically recognising certain features in the evaluation of the quality of teaching and research at the university. Those features include evaluation of all departments and facilities of the university by the university itself and by external experts not less than once every ten years.

Student assessment is also a reasonable requirement of an evaluation system. The universities will be required to implement the findings of evaluations where it is practical to do so. The role of the Higher Education Authority will not be to conduct the evaluation. That is a function of the university. Nor will the HEA's role be to implement the findings of the evaluations. That is a matter for the university. Rather, the role of the Higher Education Authority will be to review the procedures established by the universities. This section reflects my view that self assessment in quality assurance is the most sophisticated and appropriate way of promoting development within an institution and nowhere is this more appropriate than in the universities.

The fundamental White Paper principle of equality is reflected in section 32 which provides for the preparation and giving effect to a policy in each university relating to equality of access for under-represented sectors of society and to gender equality. Both these issues have been matters to which universities are already devoting attention and since the Bill was published, I have been advised by many within the university communities of their welcome for this measure.

The key objectives of this Bill are to restructure the National University of Ireland, to revise university governance structures and to provide a balance between autonomy and accountability. The key principles which underpin this Bill are those of the White Paper: pluralism, partnership, accountability, quality and equality.

Last Monday an editorial in a national newspaper stated:

Ms Bhreathnach should not lose sight of her original objective of greater accountability. The mechanism by which this is achieved may be a matter for debate, but the principle is not contested.

This Bill has been framed in the context of continuing dialogue with the university communities. The dialogue aimed to achieve the key objectives which I have just stated and was informed by the principles which I have just declared.

My Department has continued this dialogue, after the publication of the Bill. On the basis of continuing communications and dialogue, and other views expressed by concerned interests, and having consulted where necessary my colleagues in Government, I expect I will be in a position to introduce a number of amendments on Committee Stage. Before reaching a final decision on any amendments, I will listen carefully to the views of Members and give them full consideration. Members can be assured I will listen intently to their contributions and I look forward to responding on the issues raised at the end of the debate.

I commend the Bill to the House.

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate. We have reached a farcical state because we have had a number of position papers on the governance of universities and the future of universities as we move into the next millennium. The first position paper which did not see the light of day contained some fairly draconian measures. At that time the Minister was giving herself the power to appoint the chairperson of universities. That measure was diluted last year as a result of considerable debate in the universities and throughout the country. A position paper published in November was a considerable dilution of previous proposals. Many people accepted the Minister's word on that occasion while on the publication of the Bill they were extremely disappointed that it contained provisions which were not in the position paper, which were clearly interventionist, and involved a far greater degree of operational interference in the day to day running of universities. We now find the Minister has engaged in a considerable retreat brought about by political pressure, pressure from the universities, staff of universities, the university communities and people who are genuinely concerned about the impact this Bill will have on their academic freedom and future.

The Minister indicated that she intends to bring forward a number of amendments to key areas of the Bill dealing with pay and conditions of staff, section 33 and the question of suspensions and dismissals. Why were these provisions in the Bill in the first instance? Before we even begin to discuss Second Stage why is the Minister talking about substantial amendments to her Bill? We will monitor the situation carefully on Committee Stage because we have learned that the Minister's rhetoric does not match reality and that rhetoric is no substitute for tightening up the law and for dotting the is and crossing the ts in terms of the legislation that is ultimately passed.

It is clear the Minister was under political pressure and that is why we now have the announcement that she intends to introduce a range of amendments on Committee Stage. We also had the surprising development today of the Higher Education Authority taking out advertisements in the national newspapers to state its position. The last sentence in the HEA's advertisement is significant. It describes how the Higher Education Authority and the universities have been working well under the 1971 Act and puts forward the view that: "it has not sought and would not wish that any change in this process would be reflected in the legislation". We could read that in a number of ways but to me it is a coded way of saying that section 33 and the other sections of the Bill that represent a duplication and enhancement of the powers which the Higher Education Authority already has under the 1971 Act should be deleted.

The Bill provides for the redesignation of University College Cork, University College Dublin, University College Galway and Maynooth as constituent universities of the National University of Ireland. Few people have any difficulty with that. It also marks the first overall legislative assessment of our universities since the Irish Universities Act of 1908. As such it affords the House another opportunity to consider the role of third level education in our changing society. However, this Bill also proposes to lay aside university charters and to supersede existing contracts of employment. It has an importance above and beyond the sectors to which it is specifically directed.

If it is accepted, as drafted, the Bill will set precedents that can be applied to both the organisation and the terms and conditions of employment that apply in other places of work, regardless of existing agreements. It cannot avoid creating a legal minefield in industrial relations.

As for our universities, Fianna Fáil believes this Bill gives little credit to either their role or potential. The Minister has chosen to reject the contributions of the past, ignore the difficulties of the present and put the future in a straitjacket. In short, the Universities Bill is a worthy metaphor for the current situation of the Labour Party in Government. The Bill rides roughshod over the contractual rights and conditions of university workers, retrospectively cancels the status of existing agreements and proposes arbitrary powers for suspension and dismissal. In this respect the Bill reveals all the flaws and internal contradictions of a Labour Party that has lost its soul and abandoned the working man and woman.

Fianna Fáil, on its return to Government, will repeal this legislation. In Government we will develop a new partnership with our universities based on mutual respect and trust. Such a partnership will be proactive and dynamic. It will acknowledge the outstanding contribution made by our universities to the academic, artistic, cultural, economic and social life of the nation. When in Government, Fianna Fáil will trust those working in Irish universities to lead this sector with vision and commitment into the next millennium. We will jealously guard their historic right to the academic freedom vital to a healthy democracy and guarantee their independence and freedom of action to plan their future with confidence. In this context Fianna Fáil will oppose the Bill, which tramples on the terms and conditions of employment of those who work in our universities.

The preliminaries of the Bill designate all those who work in our universities as "employees", be they academics or any others who are "employed by the university in any capacity". This change of designation will come as a surprise to the many university lecturers who now find that with a stroke of the pen, the Minister proposes to disregard their existing contracts and statutory rights as "officers" of the university.

The Minister should remember this is 1996, not 1926, and that not even a member of the Labour Party in Government can retrospectively cancel the terms of employment of any person as if she exists outside the law or outside social partnership. With respect to domestic law and the current EU legislation on employment, the illegality of these particular aspects of the Bill is evident. The relevant sections are an affront not just to natural justice and the rights of those who will be affected by the Bill, but to the security of workers who think that agreed terms and conditions with an employer are agreements that will be secure and honoured by all parties.

On this point, has the Minister told the staff of the NUI colleges that their status and rights will be affected by their proposed transfer from office in the National University of Ireland to simple employment in the newly designated universities? Has she told them the protection they currently enjoy under the 1908 Act will be explicitly taken away? Has she told staff at the University of Limerick that a similar protection they enjoy under the 1991 Act will be taken away and that, therefore, what is proposed in this Bill represents a change in status? I doubt it, since she did not see fit to meet personally the unions involved with respect to these proposals when either the position paper or the Bill was being drafted.

Although requested to do so, she also refused to meet personally the staff associations of the various universities despite the fact that, as a petition from the staff of the University of Limerick put it, "a number of the measures in the Bill are significantly worse than those contained in the Minister's position paper of November 1995". It was not a rumour that motivated the staff in articulating their concerns about the Bill with regard to their pay, conditions and terms of employment. The Minister would have done well to have met the staff associations to hear their concerns at first hand. It is little wonder the Minister is running for cover and that the openness and transparency of which she speaks has a hollow ring to it. As with so much that emanates from the Labour Party, it is rhetoric masquerading as reality.

Moreover, the Minister's attempts to undermine the statutory contract of existing professors and lecturers and to set out a different position for those who are to be appointed in the future are in stark contrast to the provisions of the National Cultural Institutions Bill, 1996. It is regrettable the Minister did not examine that Bill prior to drafting this legislation. With reference to the directors of the National Museum and National Library, section 28 (5) of the National Cultural Institutions Bill, 1996, states that the present directors, that is, the officers, "... while in the service of the Board of the Museum, [shall not] be brought to less beneficial conditions of service (including conditions in relation to tenure of office) ... [than those] ... to which he or she was subject immediately before the establishment day".

Why does the Minister for Education disagree with the Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht? Can she explain this internal division within the Labour Party in Government in defining the terms and conditions of workers? Will she explain why she was so keen to list one set of terms for one set of workers and another for those who work in our universities?

For all its pretensions, the rhetoric of the Labour Party is not the law of the land and it will not protect any university employee from dismissal. In the event of staff dismissals and where they could be contested, a university worker would not be able to proceed at law under the terms of this Bill except by way of an expensive and lengthy constitutional action. A similar point is highlighted by the current action of workers at CIE. Regardless of who is right in law, it is precisely because established rights were guaranteed when the company was restructured that the workers can contest what they regard as new conditions of employment.

This House has a duty and responsibility to ensure that the workers covered by this Bill will not be deprived of their existing terms and that as universities develop, they can contest the introduction of new conditions which they consider detrimental to their situation and, especially as provided for in this Bill, if they can be introduced in a non-consultative and arbitrary way. Instead of changing the current terms and conditions of our university staff this Bill should protect whatever they have and are entitled to keep. The Minister does not want to give university workers such protection. The Bill supersedes the relevant sections of the 1908 Act and accords her the ability to challenge the charters of other universities.

Section 22 (5) states baldly: "A university may suspend or dismiss any employee". The staff of our universities may think they will continue to enjoy the protection of existing legislation but security of status for future staff will be even more invidious with consequent implications for academic freedom. Section 29 (3) states, with all the authoritarianism and austerity that pervades this Bill, that all statutes which conflict with these proposals "... are hereby repealed ...".

The Minister's cavalier attitude to the role and status of those who work in our universities also compromises the independence of the universities in respect of their own freedom of action, freedom of expression and freedom to evaluate their goals. Who is to say that the simple way in which grounds for dismissal are outlined in this Bill cannot or will not be tied to freedom of expression? Who is to say that the independence of a chief officer will not be questioned by the kind of "super HEA" proposed in this Bill? Who but the Minister is to interpret the so-called "stated reasons" the Minister will have to suspend governing authorities who in the case of Trinity College, for example, have been governing independently for over 400 years?

The concept of academic freedom is central to the role of a university in a healthy modern democracy. Since the foundation of the State, universities have nurtured and fostered independent and critical thinking among their staff. Many great university figures have not been afraid to challenge either the conventional wisdom of the day or to disagree vigorously with the Government of the day. Many campaigns to bring greater equality to Irish life, to improve civil rights and to achieve greater social progress have been developed from within the campuses of our universities.

Academic freedom and intellectual life must never be compromised by subservience to a political order. It must never be undermined by overbearing regulations and legislation which will make it more difficult to confront the establishment without fear of censure or dismissal. The Provost of Trinity College made this point when he said: "Universities must stand as centres of independent thought, free without fear or hindrance to pursue truth, to question and criticise established orthodoxies, to create and express ideas and to communicate knowledge". Above all, academic freedom must be protected from political control. The Bill fundamentally threatens this concept and will create an atmosphere in Irish university life that will be antipathetic to the unhindered flowering of academic and intellectual freedom.

Such unwarranted intrusion is evident throughout the Bill. For example, it allows for changes in pensions schemes. The Fifth Schedule specifically requires each university to "... prepare and submit to the Minister a scheme or schemes for the granting of pensions...". Is the Minister suggesting that the current schemes are in some way unsound? I have no explanation for these overbearing and unsupportable changes to university pension schemes except to suggest that, as with so much else in the Bill, the Fifth Schedule seeks to give unwarranted and new controls to the Ministers for Finance and Education and, in so doing, seeks to undermine the legal status of the current trustees. This is another legal minefield, proposed without any discussion or consultation with the staff, trustees or unions.

The Bill suggests, like the position papers in advance of it, that our universities had not been doing their job well enough. There is a clear implication in this exercise. I reject the Minister's assumptions on this score and agree with the recent OECD report on the Irish economy which stated that in terms of economic benefits both to individuals and society as a whole the returns on higher education are high in Ireland. Moreover, in adapting to change, and especially to the dramatic changes which have taken place in recent years, none of our universities had to wait for directives from Ministers or Governments or for diktats from the Higher Education Authority to inaugurate the kind of broad mission statement detailed in section 11. Instead of hindering universities on this score and restricting their freedom of action, if the Government is seriously interested in promoting this broader agenda it should look at its chronic underfunding of research and development in universities. Despite appeals to the contrary, since 1994 the Government committed only £36.5 million out of the £7 billion allocation under the Structural Funds to university expansion. The reality of the Government's record on third level education is there for all to see.

Ireland is near the bottom of the OECD and EU tables in terms of investment by the State in research and development. As a recent Higher Education Authority report concluded, despite this relative disadvantage it is "quite remarkable that since 1981 Irish universities have managed not only to improve the output of the research sector but to expand it by 51 per cent as opposed to 35 per cent in the UK". One university president recently told me that some of the equipment in his science laboratories is more than 30 years old and it was notable that even with these handicaps the research output of his university was well above the EU average.

Trinity College has 800 research contracts with local, European and global industry and this is reflected in the profile of the college's research earnings which increased from £1 million in 1981 to over £11 million in 1993. Over the past five years UCC has earned more than £50 million in funded contracts from Government and EU sources as well as from Irish and international business and industry. During 1993-4 it brought in £12.1 million of contract research money as opposed to £1 million ten years ago.

The idea which the Minister has been trying to peddle for some time that our universities are behind the times and need somehow to be updated and controlled and made accountable is as injurious as it is insulting to what they have done, are doing and are capable of doing to enhance our society and economy in the broadest possible sense. Their contribution to the cultural and artistic life of the nation has also been immense and cannot be overstated. As such, section 11, in which the Minister outlines her idea of the mission and function of the university, is a complete nonsense. She is certainly no match for Cardinal Newman. The Labour Party's manifesto for higher education, as reflected in the Bill, will not outsell his idea of universities which he saw as communities of scholarship, centres of research and creativity and as academies of teachers whose independence and sense of critical inquiry had to be protected. The quality and independence of university education must be kept inviolate from the hands of Government.

The Minister's desire to corral universities and undermine their independence is also reflected in the way in which the Bill proposes to deal with the governance of the seven universities which have different histories and backgrounds. In November 1995 the Minister in her position paper on proposals for university legislation acknowledged this difference and stated that the principle of the right of a university to regulate its affairs in accordance with its own ethos and traditions is of central importance, as is an expression of academic, operational and management freedom consistent with the effective and efficient use of resources and accountability. At that time I welcomed what I regarded as the recognition of an obvious point. However, the Minister had a change of heart during the past year and has decided to smother the independence any university needs to operate effectively. Mysteriously and without explanation, this provision has been omitted from the Bill. Why was it decided to omit this fine statement? This decision was ill thought out, added insult to injury and caused concern among all those involved in the university sector.

No Deputy believes that universities should be exempt from public scrutiny given that the public purse is involved. This is provided for in the Comptroller and Auditor General (Amendment) Act, 1993, and the Higher Education Authority Act, 1971. Under the 1993 Act a university's accounts are verified by the Comptroller and Auditor General. The president or provost is already the chief accounting officer and the accounts are subject to scrutiny by the Dáil Committee of Public Accounts. Under the 1971 Act the Higher Education Authority already exercises extensive external controls on salaries, curricular development, student entry requirements, staff numbers and structures and campus development. It is already entitled to any information or records it requires from any of the universities, to attach whatever conditions it wants to university budgets and to demand that budgets be adhered to. Why are these powers being duplicated and strengthened in the legislation?

Fianna Fáil believes that these powers are being strengthened as the basis for reducing universities to a common landscape regardless of their different traditions and irrespective of the Minister's assurances last November. Instead the Bill proposes a superlative bureaucracy which, to use the words of the former Taoiseach, Dr. Garret FitzGerald, will give the Higher Education Authority "virtual complete dominance over every aspect of the universities at the expense of the autonomy which has always been a crucial element of their role in Irish society". We should pay due regard to this statement by a former Taoiseach who has considerable experience of the political realities of life, as they emanate from Government, and of the university of life.

Fianna Fáil believes we should celebrate and protect the diversity of our educational institutions. Different universities, each with a different ethos and outlook and operating in different ways are a good and healthy thing in society. It is in this context that I wish to deal with the constraints the Bill will impose on universities, principally through a reinforced HEA, and its implications for State funding.

The State grant for each university is based on a unit cost mechanism. This is based on student contact hours and takes no account of the service provided to the industrial sector and society generally beyond the provision of well trained and educated graduates. If the Minister wants to impose on universities the kind of detailed brief set out in section 11 then the unit cost system must be changed. Is this what she has in mind and does she plan to alter the basis of the current unit cost formula to accommodate section 11? If the Government is not willing to do this then all the fine rhetoric in the Minister's mission statement is a complete farce.

A similar fuzziness appears in section 33 where the Minister proposes to give the Higher Education Authority the power to issue so-called guidelines to the universities. What does this mean in legal terms? True to the letter and spirit of the Bill, does she intend these guidelines to be compulsory? If the chief officer refuses accommodation can the Minister use the sweeping powers she has assigned herself under the Bill to dismiss the president, etc., of the university? She played around with words in her speech in so far as she said universities will not suffer or be punished in any way if they do not agree with the guidelines issued by the HEA. The Minister should delete this section given that the Higher Education Authority has indicated in its advertisement today that it is happy with the powers it has and she has said she intends to amend it in a number of ways.

A ridiculous provision in section 33 states that if a university has departed from the guidelines the Minister can publish the Higher Education Authority report in Iris Oifigiúil. As far as I am aware this kind of provision does not exist anywhere in the public service except in one case, where the Revenue Commissioners publish the names of those who settle outstanding taxes. Is the Minister trying in all seriousness to associate university presidents who want to stand up for the independence of universities with tax evaders?

A similar democratic deficit is reflected in the alterations proposed for the internal governance of universities. I am glad the Minister has recognised that the ethos of Maynooth and Trinity College should not be overwhelmed by external representation on their governing bodies. This principle should be extended to the seven universities.

We welcome the commitment to gender balance on governing bodies and increased representation for students and non-academic staff, as well as the recognition of separate constituencies for post-graduate students and for junior and senior staff who are not professors or associate professors. However, as with so much of the Bill, this is another missed opportunity. It is one matter to argue that all those who live, learn and work in a university should have representatives, it is another to argue, as this Bill does, that they should not have the stated right to elect their representatives as they see fit.

Such democratic action is denied here. Instead, the Bill proposes that internal governors can be appointed by the governing authority as it thinks fit, and not elected by the relevant constituencies. This type of dictatorship is unacceptable to us. We will oppose those sections which provide for the appointment of all internal representatives and insist that a method of election is spelt out in the body of the Bill. In a similar vein, graduates should have the right to elect whoever they choose and the representative, if he or she happens to be an employee or a student of the university, should not be subject to the scrutiny or to the waiver, of the governing authority to deem him or her duly elected. Democracy is not a two-tier process and it is regrettable that the Minister has seen fit to include a screening process that flies in the face of the very basis of freedom of choice.

While Fianna Fáil welcomes the proposals on outside representation from employers, trade unions, agriculture, the professions, business and industry, we believe the power to appoint these representatives should not lie with the chief officer of the university. As the proposals stand, the Bill breaks new ground in regard to appointments to public-sector authorities. While I am sure the House will have its own opinion on this, they are all the more important because they make a nonsense of the separation of powers between the executive and the governing body, that should exist in any authority of this kind. Given the number of nominees involved the Bill could have the effect of reducing the governing authority to a kind of rubber stamp. How can there be accountability if the people who are supposed to oversee the chief executive owe their positions on the board to him or her? The whole business pokes a finger in the eye of modern companies legislation.

It is much more important that the governing body is transparent. She must specify the number of governors for each governing body. Otherwise, distortions will arise that will make a nonsense of the internal balances of those bodies. The Bill is unrepresentative enough as it stands in that it proposes to reduce academic representation within NUI colleges from its current level of about half to, at most, between one-third and two-fifths. There is no reason it cannot provide that at least 50 per cent of the governors should be drawn from inside the university or why alumni are not represented. Moreover, given that student numbers have, in most cases, increased by more than 50 per cent since 1988, a strong case can be made for increasing, not reducing, the number of governors. As it stands, the extension of representation into other areas of Irish life, at a time when the numbers inside the university have increased, will merely marginalise internal representation. Here again the Minister rejected reforms that some universities wanted to introduce in this regard. In Trinity College the internal reform process, the Duncan-Murray report, suggested that four students should become full members of the board, and this was agreed. If the Bill is accepted this will not be possible. It is a case of the Minister not only assuming universities have not been open to reform but of ensuring that true reform will not be possible under the Bill.

The Minister has also provided for such arbitrary actions in section 28. This section gives her the power to override university charters if they are deemed to be in conflict with the proposed Act. In the following section, she goes down the same road and wants to repeal the internal university statutes where they are in conflict with the Bill as it relates to terms and conditions, governance, and so forth.

Aside altogether from the legal and constitutional ramifications of these proposals — they are currently being considered by a number of universities — even the administrative connotations of these provisions are seminal. Implicit in the provisions of any new charters is that the Minister can turn down a charter or a statute if she is not satisfied with what is proposed. With all these new powers and presumptions in the Department of Education, I can only wonder how Trinity College has survived to take its place among the great universities of the world under what the Minister obviously regards as the dark and baleful government of its present charter.

As with charters, university staff have also had the protection of the visitorial system. The powers proposed for the Minister in section 17 are nothing short of draconian. We would prefer to turn the visitor into an office that could make a positive contribution to university life, rather than have it operate as a kind of modern inspector general sent out to do the work of an autocratic tsar. It should be permanent and, as the experience of TCD shows, it can provide an effective mechanism for addressing complaints and settling grievances that would be open to the Minister and all members of faculty.

There is one principle of the Bill which I broadly welcome, the commitment to quality assessment in terms of accountability. However, I am disappointed the Minister wants to override the initiatives universities have already in place in this regard. Section 31 also pre-empts discussions that are currently in progress between the Higher Education Authority and the universities.

Fianna Fáil calls on the House to reject the Bill and its proposals to supersede the terms and conditions of current staff, to create arbitrary and summary powers for suspension and dismissal and to repeal protective legislation already on the Statute Book. We also reject the Government's attempts to interfere with the university's right to independence and freedom which is historically based and socially responsible. Any dilution of this age-old right could be used to justify further changes in the future, leaving our universities vulnerable to political interference, political expediency and political curbs on its freedom to make decisions in an autonomous way.

Universities must be allowed to continue to challenge conventional wisdom with the independence afforded to the Judiciary and the media. A state-controlled university, as distinct from a healthy State-protected one, will become listless, unproductive and intellectually sterile. With this Bill, the Minister has dealt the House a very poor hand from a very weak seat. If it is passed, the future of our universities is at best very precarious. I await the constitutional and other legal tests.

I wish I could say, as I often do at the beginning of a Second Stage speech, that I welcome the opportunity to debate this Bill. Its publication at least gives us an opportunity to note the important role universities play in our social, cultural and educational life. It provides us with a rare and valuable opportunity to discuss the current performance and future outlook of the university sector.

It is worth focusing on the importance of universities in public policy terms. Universities cater for a total student population of more than 63,000, including part-time students and distance learners. They currently absorb some £250 million of taxpayers' money each year, a figure that will increase further when free tuition fees have been fully phased in. They also play a major role in determining our social and economic future by turning out engineers, doctors, accountants, lawyers, scientists, teachers, politicians and administrators, upon whom our quality of life and our ability to create wealth depends. The Bill will chart the future course of universities well into the next century, at least for the next 20 or 30 years, unless we can do something to repeal it in the meantime.

In considering legislation it is important to adopt the right approach, but this Bill does not do that. I am sure all Members would agree there is a definite role for Government in providing university education. In every liberal democracy Government provides a substantial part of funding for the university system and assists students through tuition fee subsidies or maintenance grants. What role should Government, as a paymaster for the university system, play in regard to the universities that is commensurate with the concepts of academic independence and freedom. Essentially, the Bill endeavours to provide a new answer to that question in an Irish context, but I do not agree with it.

We must start from the premise that political interference is anathema to the very idea of a university and Government should seek to content itself with an overall regulatory role for the university sector. This means the State has a vital, but limited, range of functions to carry out in terms of the country's universities. It should protect the interests of the taxpayer by ensuring that State moneys are properly and lawfully spent by universities. This stewardship role is already being carried out by the Comptroller and Auditor General and the Higher Education Authority. It should protect the interests of the taxpayer by ensuring as far as possible that Government money is well spent by the universities. This value for money auditing role is also being carried out by the Comptroller and Auditor General. It should seek to monitor and protect academic standards across the university system.

This function is currently carried out through the external examiner system and no Government agency is directly involved. It should seek to maintain a reasonable balance between student numbers in different institutions so that some do not grow into large and unmanageable bodies while others lack the critical mass to sustain high academic standards. This function is currently carried out by the Higher Education Authority in its role as adviser to the Department of Education on university funding. It should monitor and assess the comparative performance of different universities and in the interest of openness, transparency and accountability publish the results. This will give public policy makers and prospective students an idea of how individual institutions perform in terms of examination results, academic distinctions and the career choices of their graduates. There is no reason this latter duty, for which no body is responsible at present, could not be carried out by the relevant division in the Department.

I have outlined a minimalist approach. Bureaucracy and Government interference in the running of the universities is kept to a minimum. Effectively this approach has been used for the management and oversight of the university system since the foundation of the State. The establishment of the Higher Education Authority on an ad hoc basis in 1968 and a statutory basis from 1972 provided a mechanism to improve the financial accountability of the universities but was achieved with a lightness of touch which did not impinge greatly upon the administrative autonomy of universities. The Minister in this flawed Bill adopts a different approach and one which will not command the support of both Houses of the Oireachtas. The Minister intends to put forward amendments because she knows she will not get it through the other House in its current form.

That is a basic political reality.

That is a threat.

Reality strikes. Much of public policy in Ireland in recent times has been characterised by a tendency to centralise, a preference for State control and a passion for creating more bureaucracy, usually with more places to be filled by political patronage. This approach is being pursued ever more vigorously at a time when other countries are taking the opposite approach — less centralisation and Government control with more devolution and autonomy. The Universities Bill is an attempt to extend this statist philosophy into the area of third level education in an aggressive way.

Effectively, the Higher Education Authority, a centralised, Government appointed quango, is to be assigned major new powers in running our universities. I refer, as did Deputy Martin, to one distinguished commentator, the former Taoiseach, Dr. Garret FitzGerald, who has described this centralising, "quangoising" approach as Thatcherite, and I agree with him. In many ways, Mrs. Thatcher shared the same passion for central control and the minimisation of local responsibility as her declared enemies in the command economies of Eastern Europe. It is richly ironic that a Labour Party Minister should be tarred with this brush as it is a word that the Labour Party's own handlers like to use freely as a term of abuse against their political opponents.

(Laoighis-Offaly): The Deputy should know all about Thatcherism.

Labour is the party following that policy.

Labour is the party implementing it.

The powers of the Higher Education Authority will be expanded if this Bill is enacted. It will acquire power, under section 33(2), to determine how individual institutions allocate their budgets across their different activities and may issue guidelines to them. The Higher Education Authority will, under section 22(7) and (8), be entitled to demand details of the staffing structure in each university by grade, remuneration and number at the end of each year, and to examine the books if it is not satisfied with the information supplied. Under section 22(9), the authority will have power to issue guidelines to the heads of individual universities relating to staff numbers and grades, thereby impinging on one of the key areas of management autonomy in the system. Section 30(1) requires the chief officers of the universities to submit strategic plans to the Higher Education Authority for their institutions and it will have power to review these plans. The Higher Education Authority will have power, in cases where individual universities do not comply with its wishes, to report them to the Minister for Education, who can then have that report officially published. The Higher Education Authority will have power to determine the terms and conditions on which universities may borrow money, while any borrowings can only be undertaken with the consent of the Minister for Finance and the Minister for Education. This list is not exhaustive.

These provisions give an idea of the regime which the Minister is endeavouring to construct for the governance of our universities. The new powers being given to the Higher Education Authority under this Bill must be viewed in the context of the powers it already has. At present the Higher Education Authority plays a key role in determining the level of Government grant aid for each of the universities. As this is the major source of income for all the universities, it puts the Higher Education Authority in a very strong position in this sector. It will be difficult for the universities to defy the wishes of the Higher Education Authority under the new scheme of things. They could find themselves punished the next financial year by having their grant cut or their staffing structure questioned. In practice, this new Bill transforms the Higher Education Authority into a state universities board, a centralised body that will exercise increasing power and influence over the country's university institutions.

Essentially, this Bill proposes that our universities be given the status of subsidiaries in a very large and bureaucratic semi-State company. This fits in neatly with the kind of perverted, post-colonial administrative system that has developed in this country, which operates on the belief that no public body, whether it is a county council, health board, or even a local dog track can be trusted to run its affairs properly without direction and guidance from a Government office in Dublin. This outmoded administrative thinking might have some chance of working for dog tracks but it has no chance of working in the world of the modern university because the principle of academic independence is widely respected throughout the developed world. It is accepted that university institutions should be funded to a large extent from the public purse, but that they should remain independent of national and local government provided they satisfy reasonable conditions of public and financial accountability. This principle was fought over as long ago as the Middle Ages when disputes between "town and gown" were a feature of the political landscape. This Bill is a determined attempt to throw out this historical legacy and to turn the Irish academic world into yet another agency of central Government.

Its provisions will bear down particularly heavily on Trinity College, Dublin, the oldest university on this island and an institution with more than four hundred years of independent academic tradition behind it. Perhaps more than any of our university institutions, Trinity has shown that it has the capacity to prosper and develop as an independent body and the confidence and the ability to carve out an international reputation for itself in several fields of academic discipline. Over centuries, the college has turned out giants of literature, of politics——

Deputy Harney.

——and science, including Nobel Prize winners. Among its most distinguished graduates were Burke, Goldsmith, Beckett, Berkeley and Swift. In recent years the university has been successful in forging links with industry. For the past ten years Trinity has operated a programme for joint university/industry projects and has established partnerships with leading companies such as Elan in the pharmaceutical area and Hitachi in the area of electronics. Who decided that Trinity was suddenly in need of more Government intervention?

Trinity College is perhaps the one institution in the Republic to which the Unionists of the North have strong loyalties. The college has traditionally drawn a large number of its students from the North and continues to do so. Why is there such keenness to deprive Trinity of its traditional independence and bring it firmly under the control of the Dublin Government? What signal does the Government want to send to the thousands of Trinity alumni who live in the North? Does the Minister think that this constitutes respect for their tradition? Does she think that her centralising initiative will be perceived as a gesture of reconciliation by them? They will view it as the opposite, an insensitive southern State clamouring for parity of esteem in Northern Ireland, but prepared to ignore blindly the claims of longstanding tradition on its doorstep.

Legal questions arise also. Has the Government the legislative power to limit Trinity's independence? The Minister should indicate if she has taken legal advice on this matter and, if so, its import. Why did she say she will bring forward amendments on Committee Stage to allow provisions to incorporate the amended charter for Trinity? Why can we not see those provisions now?

I also note that the Bill fails to distinguish properly between Dublin University and Trinity College Dublin. Trinity College may well be the only constituent college within the University of Dublin, but that does not change the fact that they are separate legal entities. It is amazing that the University of Dublin should have successfully maintained its independence without interruption through wars and rebellions, changes of Government and changes of flags since 1592 only to fall foul of the Labour Party 404 years later.

This Bill represents a shameful and misguided attempt to destroy the independence and autonomy of one of our oldest and finest academic institutions. In considering the Universities Bill I am tempted to raise the old maxim: "if it aint broke, don't fix it". I do not believe any of us were aware of any impending crisis in the university system, any breakdown of financial controls——

Any scandal.

——scandalous abuse of public funds, or collapse in academic standards. Was some massive fraud discovered? Did some malpractice come to light about which we have not been told? If so, the Minister should give us the facts.

The Deputy should have read the paper.

I read the Green Paper.

The invitation was there.

It was not in the form the Minister wishes to inflict on the universities of Ireland.

The Deputy asked questions and I answered them.

Let us hear Deputy Keogh without interruption from either side.

What the Minister is presenting this evening will of course be amended by her. That is something she stated in the vaguest possible terms because she knows it will not get through the other House. No malpractice came to light in relation to the universities. All the indications are that nothing of that kind could possibly have happened and that our university system is running with reasonable smoothness and efficiency. Some changes were needed but not to the extent the Minister has laid before us this evening. It seems as if we are to start vastly increasing the level of central Government surveillance on a sector which has given no evidence that it is in need of it. Contrast that with the beef industry where there is a clear and urgent requirement for immediate Government action to radically improve our system of quality assurance and consumer protection in the food industry but nothing happened until consumer confidence reached such an all time low that the Government was forced into action.

It appears that the Government is getting its legislative priorities seriously wrong in bringing forward this type of Bill which is heavy-handed and bureaucratic. It raises obvious questions about the provenance of this legislation. On an almost daily basis in this House we hear that important legislation has been put on the long finger for the umpteenth time and will not be brought forward until the next session or maybe not even until the next Dáil. In some cases we have been waiting years for the introduction of major Bills. We are awaiting the introduction of the litter pollution Bill, the juvenile justice Bill, a charter for the victims of crime and a school attendance Bill, which we really need. The list is longer and I could continue. There is no sign of those important, badly needed Bills concerning social legislation being introduced. Yet the Government is able to devote its scarce drafting resources and equally scarce Dáil time to consideration of a Universities Bill, which by the admission of the Minister, is fundamentally flawed.

Why is this type of Bill being brought before the House? It was not part of the programme for Government for which the rainbow coalition signed up and it is not the type of legislation which has been sought. I can only surmise the impetus came from the bureaucrats in the Department of Education and that the Minister was only too glad to seize on something that fitted in with the Labour Party's passion for increased State control and increased opportunities for political patronage.

The Minister has already displayed her considerable appetite for greater bureaucracy in the area of education. In her White Paper on education she set out plans for a national network of regional education boards. She gave us no idea of the cost of operating them when they are up and running, but some estimates put the additional cost to the Exchequer at £40 million per year. There is no public demand for the establishment of the regional education boards. They will be yet another layer of expensive bureaucracy, another bunch of agencies which the Minister can add to her patronage list. I suppose we should not be all that surprised that the regional education boards found their way into the Universities Bill.

Section 14(3)(b) provides that the regional education boards, when established — of course we do not know when that will be — will have power to nominate one or two members to the governing authorities of universities in their areas. That is the most remarkable example of quangos appointing people to quangos. Surely this is not the type of model we want to follow for the development of our education system.

History has given us a strange and incongruous university structure. One of our universities is a centuries old institution which owes its origin to the denominational considerations of an earlier age. Another is a modern, secular institution, less than ten years old. One of the basic functions of any universities Bill should be to cope with this diversity, to rationalise and modernise Government's relationships with different institutions while still respecting their separate traditions.

I am not sure that the proposals before us tackle this problem in a sensible way — I am fairly sure they do not. For example, the National University of Ireland might have made some administrative sense when it was originally established almost 90 years ago. Today, it makes little sense that a single university body in Merrion Square in Dublin acts as a sort of holding company for different colleges spread hundreds of miles apart around the country. This Bill proposes that the NUI structure be preserved though each of the constituent colleges would be elevated to the status of university. I do not see how that makes administrative sense. Under the Bill DCU with 6,000 students is set to become a fully autonomous institution while UCD with more than 16,000 students is to remain trapped within the outdated NUI structure. How do we justify a situation whereby one of our oldest and largest third level institutions is condemned to subsidiary status?

UCC, UCD, UCG and St. Patrick's College have been functioning successfully and efficiently as university colleges for one and a half centuries. St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, has more than two centuries of distinguished academic tradition behind it. Surely those institutions are now mature enough to be constituted as independent entities in their own right and more than capable of pursuing an independent existence at this stage? It appears that preserving the NUI is doing no more than preserving an unnecessary layer of bureaucracy. The Bill assigns two main responsibilities to the NUI. It is charged with reviewing academic standards in its constituent universities and with establishing matriculation requirements for them. Why can those functions not be carried out by the institutions?

There is no longer any need for an intermediate layer of bureaucracy, such as the NUI. If the Bill will grant all the constituent colleges university status, why can we not go the whole hog and give them full autonomy? Under the arrangements set out in the Bill, university colleges in Cork, Dublin, Galway and Maynooth will find themselves at the bottom of a very tall bureaucratic pile. Yet each of these is supposed to become an independent university in its own right. Each of them will be subservient to the NUI in Dublin, which in turn will be subservient to the Higher Education Authority, which in turn will be subservient to the Minister for Education. Do we really need to have three separate layers of bureaucracy sitting on top of our university system?

Those are various criticisms of this legislation. However, parts of it are good and welcome. The Bill provides for gender balance on the new university governing authorities and that is a step in the right direction to opening up new opportunities for women to make a contribution to public life. The provision for the increased representation of students on the governing authorities is an admission that they are the life blood of any university, but the manner in which that is to be done must be examined. Why can they not be elected? The university colleges in Cork, Dublin and Galway are to be finally given their long overdue full university status, albeit within the framework of the NUI. The position of Maynooth is being regularised within the university system for the first time. They are positive developments, but those changes could have been catered for in a much shorter and less contentious Bill. This Bill represents an unwarranted intrusion into university life by politicians and central Government bureaucrats and my party will oppose it on that basis.

The Minister said she will amend the Bill. It is extraordinary that she introduced a Bill which she admits is fundamentally flawed. We often hear Ministers say they will listen intently to all our contributions and look forward to responding at the end of the debate to the issues we have raised. The Minister knows this debate is ongoing and is trying to put on a brave face by saying the Bill has been framed in the context of continuing dialogue with the university communities.

It has been.

Frenetic, almost hysterical dialogue.

What that means is that the Minister cannot get agreement and is still desperately seeking it because of the basic flaws in the Bill. Considering the amount of criticism and the fact that the Bill has been slammed by everyone involved in university education——

That is not true.

(Laoighis-Offaly): To whom is Deputy Keogh listening?

We have consulted widely

Deputy Keogh without interruption, please.

I wonder to whom Deputy Gallagher is listening. We do not know yet what amendments the Minister proposes to make to the Bill and her words this evening are suitably vague.

Her record on promises is not good.

She is amending the Bill because of pressure from the university community and Members of the other House, who will defeat the Bill if it goes forward as currently framed. The Minister was foolish to propose a Bill that must be amended. She is involved in a damage limitation exercise so that she can scrape through in the other House with a disgracefully heavy-handed and bureaucratic Bill. As Deputy Martin said, this legislation will have to be repealed because we cannot have our universities entering the next century under this legislation.

The Minister should not smile, it will be repealed.

To put this in context, we must remember what universities are all about. A document called the Magna Carta of European Universities was signed by the rectors of European universities at the celebration of the 900th anniversary of the University of Bologna, the oldest university in the world. It states:

The University is an autonomous institution at the heart of society, differently organised because of geography and historical heritage. It produces, examines, appraises and hands down culture by research and teaching. To meet the needs of the world around it, its research and teaching must be morally and intellectually independent of all political authority and economic power.

I commend that statement to the Minister for Education. The Progressive Democrats will oppose this Bill.

(Laoighis-Offaly): I am glad of the opportunity to support this Bill. It has been a long time in gestation but promises about university legislation have been around even longer. When one sees the paucity of legislation on universities, particularly in the lifetime of the State, one must wonder whether those who pledge their admiration and respect for universities are serious about putting their words into practice, given that they have not had the wherewithal, attention or perseverance to bring forward legislation for consideration by the House. When one considers the dates of the various Acts covering our universities, it is high time the sector was examined and the legislation brought up to date.

Maybe there is nothing wrong with them.

(Laoighis-Offaly): The charter of Trinity College, Dublin was given in 1592 and last amended in 1911, the NUI colleges were set up in 1908 and Maynooth College, which I attended, first operated under a British statute of 1795. There was legislation in 1989 to set up the excellent universities of DCU and Limerick but in the debates at the time it was recognised that those Acts were limited in their extent and scope and the matter would have to be re-examined when the overall sector was being considered in a legislative framework.

Apart from quoting history in support of my case, I must also consider the changes in what universities are doing, particularly those in the last 30 years, to see that the provisions under which they govern themselves and their relationship to the wider community need to be brought up to date. Only 4,000 people were in university when the NUI was set up in 1908; this year there are 50,000. The contribution of the wider community to universities to assist them in running their affairs amounts to £228 million. I do not suggest the taxpayer should dictate what universities do, but that underlines the extent of the relationship between the wider community and the universities and the community's legitimate interest in being involved and having a say in how universities organise and govern themselves.

The Minister has rightly engaged in a lengthy process of consultation in respect of this legislation. For want of proposals of its own the Opposition is trying to portray consultation as weakness but I commend the Minister for it. Far too many Ministers come to this House with rapidly drafted legislation on which little consultation with outside bodies has taken place.

This legislation will have to be changed.

Substantially and dramatically.

(Laoighis-Offaly): While they may say they are open to suggestions and amendments from all sides of the House, in practice few of them are. I commend the Minister on her approach. Contrary to what Deputy Keogh said, not everyone in the wider community is against this Bill. Many groups within the universities who have not been represented to any great extent before are glad to see provisions which will advance their position. I urge her to continue this process of consultation in both Houses and I am satisfied that ultimately we will have a Bill which will be flexible enough to meet the various needs and traditions in our universities while providing an overall framework for their modern governance.

I commend the provisions on St. Patrick's College, Maynooth. Since the 1970s we have heard various promises to bring this recognised college of the NUI up to university status. To correct Deputy Keogh, it is a recognised rather than a constituent college at present. I welcome the provision in the legislation to make St. Patrick's College, Maynooth a constituent university of the NUI to be known as the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. This is another milestone in the distinguished history of that college.

I am also glad it is gaining university status while remaining within the NUI framework. I am an NUI graduate and NUI degrees are widely recognised and respected throughout the world. In response to Deputy Keogh's remarks on the NUI, the proposals in the Bill show the extent to which consultation has taken place and NUI graduates are glad the university from which they received their degrees, which has earned such wide respect throughout the world, will continue in existence.

At the same time, the system of government of the colleges which currently constitute the university, plus the recognised college in Maynooth, will be greatly improved. Maynooth will have a governing authority for the first time. At present there is no legislation underpinning the recognised college at Maynooth. Under this Bill, the National University of Ireland, Maynooth will be established on the same statutory basis as the other three constituent universities of the NUI. Accordingly, it will move from the status of a recognised college of the NUI to a full university. Of all the university institutions affected by the Bill, the change of status is greatest in the case of Maynooth, which will now become the seventh university in the State. I hope when the Bill is enacted, as quickly as possible, through these Houses, the recognition as a university in its own right, for which Maynooth has worked so hard for so long, will be accorded to it. I compliment the efforts of senior staff, academic staff, students and the trustees of the college to consult the Minister and her predecessors to ensure the long-promised upgrading of status is delivered.

In respect of Maynooth the Bill affirms the core values of the university to be the same as those of other universities in the State, that is to advance knowledge through teaching and research, to promote learning among students and society generally, to promote cultural and social life while fostering and respecting the university's tradition, to contribute dynamically to social and economic development and to promote the highest standards and quality of teaching and research and facilitate life long learning. I have no doubt that Maynooth already meets those objectives and will continue to do so when the legislation is passed.

The university at Maynooth has evolved in a unique way, from a clerical base to what is now one of the most diverse universities in the country. As it is situated on the periphery of the Dublin region it has a unique combination of students from rural and urban areas. Long before it was fashionable, it made particular efforts to involve adults, people who had left the education system many years previously, in further education through initially its centre for adult and community education and latterly the provision of non-graduate courses not only in the university but in many diverse locations throughout the country.

I welcome the provision whereby for the first time there will be student representation on the governing bodies of NUI universities.

That was always the case. It has been recognised.

(Laoighis-Offaly): It is now provided for on a statutory basis, which is very important because for too long students have been fobbed off as second class citizens and lip service has been paid to their supposed membership of the university community. Compared to students in many of the longer established universities in Europe and more recently established universities in Africa and Asia, students here have not been given a central part in the governance of the university.

Under the Bill non-academic staff in Maynooth and other NUI universities will be given statutory rights to representation on governing bodies. Similarly, in the case of NUI universities non-professorial academic staff will be represented. These are vital provisions if we are to put into practice what we state about the university being a community made up of many diverse parts.

I welcome the provision in section 31 that students be included in the evaluation process. Methods of evaluation in universities vary widely. There is need for variation but it is important to ensure that evaluation is conducted on an ongoing basis and that the necessary procedures are put in place. Unfortunately that has not been the case in all colleges. As an undergraduate and postgraduate student I found that some colleges are better than others in terms of providing opportunities for students to contribute to evaluation of courses. I welcome the provision in section 31 which states that the procedures for evaluation shall provide for assessment by students.

I welcome the provision in section 32 relating to equality. Those of us who have been lucky enough to go to university realise that our education system has not provided the same level of educational opportunity to everybody, and nowhere is this more evident than in the third level sector. I am glad that trend is changing. From studies undertaken of participation in third level education it is clear that for people who are members of certain socio-economic groups, have certain categories of disability, are members of minority groups or, particularly from a staffing point of view, for women there is no equality of treatment, a stated objective which is not put into practice within colleges or in legislation.

I welcome the provision in section 32 whereby a governing authority shall prepare a statement of the university's policies. I do not think that can be construed as unwarranted State interference. What is proposed is that universities consider this matter, as many of them have done. I am aware of courses in a number of colleges which have sought to involve lone parents, social welfare recipients and people with disabilities, but much more needs to be done in that regard. I hope that when this legislation is enacted and universities have had time to put it into practice there will be greater accessibility to university education by economically and socially disadvantaged people and people from sections of society significantly under-represented on the student body. It is important that there be equality, including gender equality, in all activities of the university.

The Opposition criticised the Minister for bringing forward the legislation and said it is not necessary at present. In my short time here I have rarely detected such a note of conservatism. There is no need to be conservative in respect of our universities.

That is the point. They should be free of constraints.

(Laoighis-Offaly): They have achieved tremendous results, academically and socially, and have contributed to the economic development of the country. Deputy Keogh said, “If it is not broken, why fix it?”

I said the Government is imposing another layer of bureaucracy.

(Laoighis-Offaly): Nobody is saying that the system is broken.

That is the implication.

(Laoighis-Offaly): Those involved in universities recognise that the legislation governing them needs to be updated. Deputy Keogh rightly said that no scandals have been uncovered. We do not need scandal to bring in legislation in respect of any aspect of our educational provision. It is an insult to universities to say that since no scandals have been found there is no need for this legislation.

The Deputy should quote me accurately.

(Laoighis-Offaly): I am quoting the Deputy accurately. She said, “If it is not broken, why fix it?”. If the Deputy checks the record she will find that is what she said. The world has changed and the numbers participating in university education have changed. In the last ten to 15 years the trend has been to bring in a greater number of students as consumers of university courses. That is not what universities were set up for. This legislation will redress that position, particularly in respect of students.

I hope universities address the problem of the rat race — this is experienced by students in second level education and more recently in third level — which results from semesterisation and academic pressures, to the detriment of many activities in which students have traditionally been involved, particularly clubs, societies and organisations which in many respects allowed them to gain skills and experience which benefited them in later life.

Debate adjourned.
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