National College of Art and Design Bill, 1971: Second Stage.

Question proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Minister for Education (Mr. Faulkner)

So much has been written and spoken about the National College of Art that even when introducing a Bill into An Seanad it is difficult to find any words to add to what has been said already. Before dealing with the Bill before the House, I must, however, say that a great deal of what has been written was so much unrelated to the real facts as to be somewhat akin to fiction.

The Bill itself is a simple measure. It is directed towards removing the College of Art from my Department and placing them under an independent governing body whose task it will be to manage the college and organise and administer their affairs. When we come to examine the details of how it is proposed to bring this about consideration of the events of the past two years will add nothing to what we are seeking to achieve under the Bill. Nothing is in fact to be gained from recrimination.

The Bill as amended in the other House provides for the setting up of a board entitled An Bord to take charge of the college—the membership of An Bord not to be less than nine or more than 11. It also provides that the director of the college will be a member of An Bord. An Bord will also contain amongst their membership representatives of both the teachers and students and will elect their chairman from amongst their members other than the director and the teacher and student representatives.

The provision for teacher and student representation on a board such as this is the first occasion on which such a concept has been enshrined in legislation and given a statutory basis. I regard this as a welcome development and in keeping with the concept of student representation as previously accepted by the Government when nominating their representatives on the governing bodies of the Colleges of the National University of Ireland. While I welcome this development I must stress the very great onus it will place both on teachers and students to see to it that the contribution their representatives will make to the running of the college will be an entirely objective one so that they themselves may get the maximum benefit from their involvement in the day-to-day operations of the college.

I have never claimed that a Government Department are the proper body to administer the affairs of a college of art. This is a view which is fully shared by the officers of my Department. Our task has been to establish the most effective way in which the administration of the college will be transferred from the Department.

The Bill is in no way a technical measure and it is not necessary to go into any detail by way of explaining the various sections. There is just one section to which I would like to make special reference. It is section 26 which safeguards the interests of certain teachers in the college. My concern here is, on the one hand, with those teachers who have given a considerable period of service in the college and to cater for any expectations they might have had. On the other hand An Bord must be given a large measure of discretion in regard to the staff they will employ. I feel that the Bill strikes the correct balance in confining the obligation which is being placed on An Bord in the matter of retention of the existing staff to those members of that staff who were appointed on the recommendation of the Civil Service Commissioners or who have temporary service of not less than five years duration and are serving for not less than 18 hours per week.

I have every confidence that under the aegis of the autonomous body which is being constituted under this Bill the college can develop in such a way as will enable them to cater in a fuller manner for the cultural and economic needs of the community in so far as they relate to Art in its fullest sense. The altered title of the college shows the stress we are placing on design. Good design in all its aspects will have a vital part to play in the highly competitive world which is facing all those engaged in production. I have pleasure in commending the Bill to the House.

Sul a gcríochnóidh mé ní miste a rá nach inniu ná inné a thosnaigh muintir na hÉireann ag cur suime i gcúrsaí ealaíne. Tá roinnt de na seoda is ársa agus is luachmhara ar domhain againn anso. Ní gá ach breathnú ar Leabhar Ceanannais nó dul go dtí an Musaeum aon lá. Is ceann suntasach de na slithe in ar féidir le náisiún é féin do chur in iúl cothú a stíl féin ealaíne agus dearthóireachta. Má bhíonn gach aoinne a bhíonn páirteach sa Choláiste faoin eagras nua idir lucht stiurtha, múinteoirí is mic léinn go díograiseach i mbun oibre níl fáth ar bith ann nach mbeadh páirt mhór agus páirt thábhachtach le glacadh ag an gColáiste i saol na tíre. Tá súil agam gur mar sin a bheas agus go mbeidh rath i gcónaí ar obair an Choláiste.

Professor Kelly

We, on this side of the House, recognise the urgency of the situation which the College of Art faces and the urgency of legislation to improve their conditions. In his opening speech, the Minister asked that there should be no further recrimination in regard to the events in the College of Art during the last two years. In the spirit of his appeal, I shall not refer to any of these incidents, nor will I recriminate. The Bill is honestly intended to offer a new starting point for the National College of Art, and the Minister is right in suggesting that any further recriminations about what has happened in the past, unless they are relevent to a prediction of what may happen in the future, are out of place here.

Before I comment on the provisions of the Bill which seems to me to be significant, I should like to say something about the college, in the physical sense, arising from a statement made by the Minister in the other House. I know that I shall not get another opportunity of saying this—it would not be in order to say it on Committee Stage or Report Stage—so I must mention it now.

When the Minister was speaking in the Dáil, he said, at column 161 of Volume 255 of the Official Report, that he had requested an architectural firm to design a new College of Art; and that, he said, was proceeding. He was pressed by Deputy FitzGerald for the Fine Gael Party to name the site on which this new college will be built, and to say which firm had been entrusted with the job of designing the college. The Minister gave no reply to either of these questions. He simply said: "At the moment we are designing it and the Deputy will be glad to hear that we have the site." However, we do not know from the Minister where the site is, and we do not know what firm have been entrusted with this job. It is possible that the Minister has entrusted the job, which is of such absolutely central importance in the aesthetic life of this country that it scarcely needs to be emphasised, to the one firm capable of doing it properly. However, the other thing is also possible.

I wish to draw the attention of the Minister and of the House to the sinister similarity between the proceeding which the Minister declared himself in the Dáil to have adopted in regard to new premises for the College of Art, and the proceeding which the Minister for Finance adopted here three years ago in regard to the design of our decimal coinage. Then, as now, we were dealing with something which—on different scales admittedly—was going to be a showpiece and was going to be something which would be representative of the nation and of its cultural and artistic aspirations. It was going to be something which we could stand over and say that in this field, as in the other one, we were putting our best efforts into securing an aesthetically satisfactory result.

In the case of the coinage, as the House does not need to be reminded, the Minister took it on himself, on his own confidence in his own aesthetic sense, to commission a single artist, with neither advertisement nor competition, advice or consultation from anybody else to design the new coinage. The results have not been satisfactory. That is my judgment on them. Even if my judgment were wrong, it was a wrong procedure from beginning to end, and I want to warn the Minister that if he has seriously entered into some contractual relationship with a firm of architects undisclosed, with neither advertisement nor competition, to design a new College of Art, we are going to be landed, quite possibly, with a college which will be a reproach to this State and to everybody in it. I want to say that that is the wrong way to go about designing any State building at all, let alone one whose inherent relationship to the very thing we are talking about—art and design— is so close.

When the Minister replies to this debate, I hope that he will tell us how far these negotiations have gone, and whether he has definitely committed the State to expenditure in regard to commissioning architects to design a College of Art. Incidentally, I should also like to know if we are getting a design before we have a site, or if the design is being made independent of the site. Leaving aside that matter, the Minister must be told by this House, or by this side of the House, as plainly as we can tell him, that the only acceptable way to have a design made for an important public building with inherent close associations with the very things we are talking about—art and design— is to hold a competition—if possible, an international competition—with properly qualified assessors, to make sure that we are not going to get something on which no point of view has been brought to bear except that of the Minister's own Department. That is absolutely vital. I concede that even an international competition does not guarantee a good result; I concede that even advertising does not guarantee a good result; and I concede that the kind of people available to the Minister to offer advice in a matter of this kind may, in advising him, advise him wrongly. These are risks that have to be taken. But whatever risks are involved in that course, they are definitely less than the risks involved in what the Minister has declared himself to have done, if I understand his speech in the Dáil correctly. He has commissioned a firm of architects to design a new College of Art on some undisclosed site without any competition or advertisement or any reference to experts or any consultation with the kind of people, inside or outside the country, who might know something about the matter and how it should best be done.

It is possible, in picking on these few words of the Minister's speech in the Dáil, that I am doing him an inadvertent injustice. It is possible that he has taken advice and that, unknown to me, some sort of competition has been held and if so, I should like the Minister to clear the matter up. I wish to say unequivocally that we do not regard it as acceptable that an important building of this kind should be designed in the way our coinage was designed. The design of our coinage was a disgraceful instance of misgovernment, on a small scale if you like. If the College of Art is designed in the same way, by a Government Department decision to go to a particular firm of architects with no consultation, advice or competition, we are likely to get a bad result and this will be another example of bad government. I hope the Minister will be wise enough to draw back from the possibility of involving himself in a bad piece of government such as this.

Mrs. Robinson

Hear, hear.

Professor Kelly

The Minister proposes in this Bill to set up a board to control the National College of Art. I hope no one will think I am bringing the debate down to a Committee Stage level if I mention that in section 2 the distinct reference to Kildare Street seems to throw some kind of legal obstacle in the Minister's way if he moves the college to another situation because it will no longer be the National College of Art and situated in Kildare Street. I may be wrong about that, because it could be said that section 2 only purports to describe the college as it now is.

The board we will have when this Bill passes is intended as the Minister frankly said, and I accept that he means it this way, as a buffer between the State and the academic operations of the college. He has said, and I accept it as true, that he and his Department do not wish to be as directly responsible for the college's academic operations as they have been in the past. The Minister wishes to create an autonomous body or something similar. It was pointed out to him by our party and by the Labour Party in the Dáil that some of the provisions in his Bill fell short of making this board autonomous and the Minister, very fairly, came some of the distance to meet these criticisms in a number of cases.

In fact the board is not fully autonomous, and is not free of the danger that people who know nothing about art and nothing about teaching will be directing the operations of the college. I have in mind the provision of section 18 which provides that the board may delegate to any of its officers or servants, in other words possibly to a civil servant— well-meaning, honourable and incorruptible, no doubt, but someone totally ignorant of art, design or teaching—any of its functions, including the designing of courses in art inside the college.

That feature is copied almost word for word from the Higher Education Authority Act, which we criticised in this House at that time. It is equally open to criticism now and it is an objectionable feature of the Bill. I should like the Minister to look at it again, as it will be the subject of an amendment from our side in due course. That is the most striking instance of how the Bill does not free the college, the students and the work they are doing from the possibility of uninstructed bureaucratic control.

Apart from the peculiar danger of section 18 I should like to draw the attention of the House to two points on which I feel the Minister should satisfy us, or which I hope he will mention when replying. One is this. If we hand the affairs of the National College of Art over to a board, it will mean, as in the case of any other board entrusted with some department of national life, that the Minister will no longer be answerable in the Dáil by question for the day-to-day operations of that board. He will no longer have to explain why somebody has been sacked, why somebody has been failed in an examination, or why some grant or award has or has not been given.

I realise that nobody would wish the Minister or anybody else to be the recipient of parliamentary questions about the day-to-day operations of a university. I would not like to have my own day-to-day operations the subject of parliamentary questions in the Dáil. But the point here is that universities in this city are genuinely autonomous bodies. The degree of governmental control over them is limited. It may be greater now through the Higher Education Authority Bill but it is limited to providing finance and some consultation regarding the disposition of that finance. There has never been any direct State control over the day-to-day academic operations of the universities. That is as it should be.

The situation regarding this College of Art is different. It will be very closely connected with the State, notwithstanding the Minister's desire to place a buffer between the academic operations and himself. We will pay a price for this board in that if there is more trouble, more strikes, more sackings in this college, the sort of thing about which complaints have been made over the last two years and over which so much propaganda has been issued by various sides, the Minister will no longer be answerable to the Dáil for whatever happens.

In a sense I am trying to have it both ways, but that is because the Minister's Bill, as it now stands, forces me to look at it from that point of view. If this were a genuinely autonomous academic institution, even as autonomous as University College, Dublin, or Trinity College, naturally I would not ask the Minister to be required to answer questions about its daily operations. But when I find, in effect, that an officer of the board who quite likely will be a civil servant, is in a position to influence strictly academic matters, which is the result of section 18, we are losing something in withdrawing from the supervision of the Dáil, exercised by way of parliamentary question, the operations of the college which at the present time the Minister has to stand over when he replies to these questions.

I should like the Minister to tell this House what advice he took, if any, from outside experts on the running of art colleges before this Bill was drafted. I have often complained in this House about the way in which British legislation is copied here word for word, line for line, paragraph by slavish paragraph, ten or 20 years after the legislation in England has been passed and has perhaps even become obsolete. I am not asking that the Minister should copy slavishly any particular outside pattern. We have one National College of Art which has had an unhappy history in the last couple of years and into which I do not wish to go. I should have thought that the sensible way of reconstituting this college and of setting up an authority to administer it, would have been to go to colleges of art in other countries, to see what type of constitutions they have and to measure their performance, academic, disciplinary and so on against that constitution.

I should like the Minister to tell the House whether this Bill is purely the result of the cogitations of his own Department or whether it also reflects consultation between his Department and the kind of schools of art in other countries who would have been willing to give advice had they been asked for it. I make no pretence of being an expert either on art itself or on the teaching of it but I should like the Minister to let us know which experts or authorities of an artistic or educational kind—and I mean education in the sense of actually dispensing the teaching, not just organising or paying for it—advised on the structure of this board and advised on the relationship of the board to the college and its operations. I am not accusing the Minister, because I do not know what the answer will be, of having taken no advice; but I should like him to tell the House what he did not tell the Dáil, namely, how much advice he did take, where he got it and at what price we should value that advice.

There are a few points which I do not have to make, but I think it would be fair to the Minister and his advisers if I made them quickly, even though they might perhaps be more appropriate at Committee Stage, because I should like to give the Minister an opportunity of considering them in advance of Committee Stage. I make them, therefore, as briefly as I can. Section 5, subsection (2) paragraph (e) states:

establishing and carrying on schemes (on which the amount of the expenditure by An Bord shall have been approved of by the Minister) for the giving of scholarships, bursaries, prizes and other awards in relation to art, crafts and design.

The Minister, at the instance of my party, did amend this clause in the Dáil and I recognise that now. But I wish to draw the attention of the Minister and that of his Department to the possible relationship between this clause and section 23, subsection (2) of the Bill, which empowers the board to receive gifts of money provided that the conditions under which these gifts are made are not inconsistent with the functions of An Bord.

I try to place these two provisions beside one another and what occurs to me immediately is this. No testator or philanthropist is likely to make an unconditional gift of money to An Bord. That will not happen any more than you will get somebody making an unconditional gift of money to An Coimisiún Muc agus Bágúin, An Coimisiún Dumpála, Bord na gCon or Bord na gCapall. What may happen is that somebody may offer a gift of money to this board with conditions attached to it and these conditions are likely to be conditions which oblige the board to spend the money in a particular way, namely, the awarding of a prize or the giving of a scholarship. That is something which is very likely indeed.

I wish to draw the Minister's attention to the possible difficulty which the juxaposition of this section with clause (e) in subsection (2) of section 5 is going to make. It may be the case that a testator, someone who is no longer there to be consulted, leaves money to the college in order to provide a scholarship bursary or prize in some form of art or design which the Minister may at the moment not approve of, or be advised not to approve of, and possibly the conditions of this gift are insufficiently tightly drawn to prevent the money from going into the general fund of the board.

It seems to me that clause (e) in subsection (2) may enable the Minister— I am sure he does not wish to do this— or board to defeat the intention of the person giving the gift. I do not wish to state that definitely. The Minister's advisers can perhaps consider the possibility but clause (e), which subjects the amount of the expenditure on scholarships, bursaries and so on to a sum approved of by the Minister, may produce at some time in the future a conflict with the wishes of the philanthropist who leaves money to the college for some artistic purpose with the intention of encouraging excellence by providing a scholarship or bursary of a particular amount.

Section 6, subsection (6) was mentioned in the Dáil. It is the subsection dealing with the method of nomination by members of the academic staff of the college to the board. The Minister was asked in the Dáil to provide in this Bill that that system of nomination should be by proportional representation. The reason why he was asked to do that was not because Fine Gael wanted to hammer the drum about proportional representation, but because if the system of nomination of members of the teaching staff to the board is done by a straight vote, in other words if the people with the two largest number of votes are elected, it may easily be—not to put a tooth in it—that either the radical or conservative wing of the teaching staff will be exclusively represented. I know the Minister has been urged to do this already but he should look at the matter again. I intend to look again at this subsection to see if this House could put in some kind of form into subsection (6) of section 6 which will ensure that, so far as two individuals can represent a teaching body of 30 or 40, they will be reasonably representative of both sides, if two "sides" exist.

Another difficulty arises in subsection (7), paragraph (b), of the same section, which states:

The first appointments under this subsection shall be made as soon as reasonably may be after the establishment day, but An Bord may Act before such appointments are made.

At the moment the college is not operating. What this, in fact, means is that the board might start to operate before any recognisable student body had assembled, been identified or had an opportunity to nominate its representatives. If that happens I want to warn the Minister that the board will be running into exactly the same kind of trouble as the college has had over the last couple of years. Unless I have misunderstood the effect of the clause, this House will have to amend it in such a way as to exclude that possibility.

There may be difficulties in trying to reconstitute an identifiable student body and get them to elect representatives, but it will be asking for trouble if this board is set up minus the student representatives, and if it begins to carry on its work without the students having some say. I am by no means a believer in allowing students to dictate the course of events in academic institutions, and the Minister in this Bill is not proposing such a thing. He is giving student representation minority representation. I think that is perfectly proper. But, whatever the size of the representation, the conditions in the college have been such that the Minister will be asking for trouble if the board is allowed to be set up and begin its work minus its student representatives. We will have to think of some way of making sure that does not happen.

I wish to mention this briefly to forecast an amendment which I propose to introduce. In section 9 the Minister very properly proposes that:

(1) A member of An Bord who has—

(a) any interest in any company or concern with which An Bord proposes to make any contract, or

(b) any interest in any contract which An Bord proposes to make, shall disclose to An Bord the fact of the interest and the nature thereof and shall take no part in any deliberation or decision of An Bord relating to the contract, and the disclosure shall be recorded in the minutes of An Bord.

(2) A member of An Bord who is related to a person who is a candidate for appointment by An Bord as an officer or servant of An Bord shall disclose to An Bord the fact of the relationship and the nature thereof and shall, if An Bord so decide, take no part in any deliberation or decision of An Bord relating to the appointment, and the disclosure and decision shall be recorded in the minutes of An Bord.

I only wish it could be extended to every form of job in this country and to every form of patronage and public benefit. This is an attempt to exclude the possibility that people who are members of the board will be lobbying for their own relations or for business concerns with which they have a connection. To that extent it is entirely laudable and I agree with it, but I wish to point out to the Minister that the section contains no sanction. We spotted a clause of the same kind in the Higher Education Authority Bill. There is nothing said about what will happen if a member of the board fails to make such a disclosure. Nothing is said about what is to happen if a member of the board, failing to make such a disclosure, uses his position on the board in order to confer some advantage on a commercial concern with which he is associated or on some relation of his who is up for a job. I propose to bring an amendment into this House to make this a mandatory ground for the removal of a member of the board should he be guilty of such a thing. In section 11 the Minister proposes that:

A member of An Bord shall be disqualified from holding and shall cease to hold office as such member if he is adjudged bankrupt, or makes a composition or arrangement with creditors, or is sentenced by a court of competent jurisdiction to suffer imprisonment or penal servitude or ceases to be ordinarily resident in the State.

I can guess what is in the Minister's mind in that clause. Possibly he has in mind the potentiality of some student member committing some act of malicious damage and being sentenced to imprisonment. Perhaps the Minister feels, and I would not disagree with him, that a member of that type has no title or right any longer to sit on the board. But the statement of the Minister's intention in section 11 is too broad.

I should like to see some kind of discretion introduced into it, even if it is a discretion of the Minister himself, although I dislike ministerial discretions in general, to waive this if the sentence concerned is one relating to an offence which has no possible bearing on the discharge of the member's functions on the board. In other words, I can imagine a case where somebody might be sentenced to a term of imprisonment for drunken driving. I deprecate drunken driving, but I can well imagine that somebody who is unfortunate, foolish and criminal enough to commit an act of drunken driving could still be a valuable and useful member of this board. There should be some discretion, even if it is a discretion left to the Minister himself, for excepting from the application of this section people whose offences, even though they have had to suffer imprisonment for them, are ones which do not impinge on their suitability as members of the board.

The second last point which I want to make is one which I have adverted to briefly already and I will not spend time on it now. It is in my view the deadly provision of section 18 which, in two lines, says:

An Bord may perform any of its functions through or by any of its officers and servants duly authorised by An Bord in that behalf.

If we turn back to the functions which the board have in section 5 we will see that some of them are of an entirely academic kind. Take for example the first one:

establishing and carrying on schemes of education of such scope and extent as it may determine in art, crafts and design,

Section 18 means that the possibility is open that the board would advocate or delegate to somebody who conceivably might know nothing about art or design, or education, the power to determine what kind of courses should be given. I know the Minister will tell us, as he told us on the Higher Education Authority Bill, that we have to assume the board will consist of reasonable people who will behave reasonably. I have to say for the umpteenth time this year in this House that we cannot legislate on that basis. I do not think it is right to ask the House to put a power of this kind into the hands of the board, a power which entitled them virtually to abdicate their responsibilities to somebody who may know nothing at all about any of the functions described in section 5.

The last point I want to make—I hope I will not be thought niggling or pedantic in making it—concerns the Irish title of this board. If the Minister's Bill is accepted we are now going to get something called: "Bord an Choláiste Náisiúnta Ealaíne is Deartha." When I see an institution, which formerly has been called the National College of Art, having its name transformed into a long clumsy Irish title, I instantly suspect the clammy hand of a humbug-ridden establishment. I want to make it clear, as I have done here on former occasions, that what I am saying now is not to be interpreted as an attack on the Irish language.

I regard this conferring of weighty Irish titles on institutions in which not a word of Irish is ever spoken, not as a compliment to the language but as an insult to the language. I regard it as making a sham and a mockery of the language and I solemnly charge the Minister and every other Minister, who has ever introduced such a provision, of going along with this. There can be no question but that this is a clumsy and unmanageable title. Objection was taken in the Dáil to the use of the word "board" and the Minister defended himself, effectively enough I suppose, by pointing to the Board of Trinity College which he said was also an academic board. I do not mind the word "board" so much but the full Irish title—I can see no reason, incidentally, for inserting the word "design" either in English or in Irish—is clumsy and as I say it is simply a cynical salute to the sham and humbug of the current establishment in this country.

Before I leave the question of the Irish title I want to draw the Minister's attention, if I may do so without pedantry and I hope without making a fool of myself by disclosing ignorance of the language, to the fact that so far as I know this is the only title of any statutory body in this country, and the only case in which one finds the title even of an Act, in which the Irish word for "and" is rendered as "is" instead of as "agus." I consulted Father Dinneen before making this point and I will not waste the House's time with it, but according to Father Dinneen the form "is" is simply a contraction of "agus." We all say "is" instead of "agus" when we are speaking colloquial Irish just as we say "fish-‘n'-chips" or "ham-‘n'-eggs", removing the "a" and the "d" from the word "and". But I regard it as a slovenly piece of draftsmanship in Irish that we should be getting this colloquial form of the word "and" in this title. The Minister will find no other precedent for it anywhere in our legislation. His colleague, who was here half an hour ago, is not "An tAire Dlí is Cirt". He is "An tAire Dlí agus Cirt". His other colleagues are "An tAire Iompair agus Cumhachta", "An tAire Tionscail agus Tráchtála", et cetera and we do not get this contraction, which is perfectly acceptable in colloquial speech but which is thrown in here, so far as I know, for the only time in our legislation.

I do not want to be described as a pedant. What I complain about is the gross humbug and hypocrisy which confers on this college an enormous, extended title of this kind but which cannot even get it right. The reason is because no one gives a damn whether it is right or wrong and that when we are talking Irish any old slobber will do. I protest about that. I am not going to waste my time putting down an amendment. If the Minister wishes to give his institution that title it is entirely a matter for himself.

Mr. Keery

While we were away during the summer I read a speech by Senator Kelly about the Minister for Foreign Affairs. He used adjectives to describe the Minister for Foreign Affairs which I thought were extremely typical of his own utterances here and I am sorry that an occasion has cropped up so quickly which to my mind gives me an opportunity to comment on his style, particularly on the last part of his speech. Senator Kelly used at that time phrases such as "snivelling bombast" and "their vicious tone"—Senator Kelly —type words. I regret to say that to my mind they are words which apply to the tone in which Senator Kelly ended his speech.

Professor Kelly

Would the Senator like to back up his defence of this title of the college?

Mr. Keery

Certainly I am not in any way attempting to meet the Senator's material point. The adjectives which he used are adjectives which refer to a mode and style and it was in that way that I returned them.

I want to get away from this whinging style and try to put my contribution to the discussion in quite a different context. It seems to me that we are discussing the Bill in quite an interesting context. First of all, we have a situation in which for reasons good or ill, painful or not, we find ourselves discussing a Bill which is in effect aiming to set up a national college of art and design from scratch, in that we have found the existing institution, the National College of Art, closed down. This probably is a helpful context in which to build again and indeed is a context which was recommended as a virtue by an advisory council considering the matter as far back as July, 1969, but as we are thinking of building again it is important—this perhaps is simply a statement of fact which may be of value to the staff and students of the National College of Art—to have an ear to the sort of views which laymen have, the man-in-the-street, of the present situation as it effects the National College of Art. Certainly, in so far as my dealings with the ordinary man-in-the-street are concerned a situation has arisen where his attitude towards the National College of Art and the students is almost such that he would be happier if the whole thing were razed to the ground and forgotten about altogether. Such people used words to describe the situation suggesting that if there is a site for a new building of the National College of Art the best site might well be on the top of a mountain in County Wicklow, so that by the time the students got to the summit they would really appreciate the education they might receive there.

Those are not attitudes of which I approve, but they are common attitudes among the community at large where the College of Art and art students are concerned. I hope that when this Bill becomes law and efforts are made to get the college going again the students and staff will be aware that their institution can only thrive in a reasonable climate of public opinion and sympathy. I hope that for their part, as the Minister has suggested in his opening speech, their contribution will be a constructive one in the task of building again from the tabula rasa, so to speak.

Another aspect of the present context in which we are debating is the plight of the present students. I am very much aware of this. The main concern of the majority of students in the college is to get back to work and their main disappointment is that for many reasons, in which the majority of them were not concerned, they find themselves without the use of facilities and without the guidance of their teachers. It is an urgent matter to get the National College of Art going again and for that reason I am glad that the House is in a situation to carry on this debate even though the debate in the other House only finished last night.

On this point of starting again, there was criticism of the Bill when it first appeared, particularly about the form in which it was introduced, its bureaucratic nature and what many members of the staff regarded as very severe restrictions in having to work under new legislation. When I was approached regarding this problem and looked into the situation, I saw that the particular points to which my attention had been drawn had already, in effect, been dealt with by amendments tabled by the Minister himself. I welcomed that immediate recognition of criticism and I think this spirit has continued throughout the debate.

Might I just go back to the general principle of the importance of education in art and design? If I might quote two sentances, which seem to me to put the whole thing in a nutshell, from the Report of the Council of Design, which appeared in 1967 and which I find very useful from time to time when called on to discuss matters of education in the arts. I quote from paragraph (2) on page 3:

A society indifferent to the functional and visual furnishings of its everyday life is blind to the merits of design. By its indifference to the objects it creates it may be said to be only half alive. A society which educates democratically and which respects the capacity for enjoyment in all its citizens does not regard appreciative taste as the pursuit of a privileged minority but as a normal dimension of civilised living.

I think these are fine phrases and fine objectives and a fair comment on our society because we are terribly short in the matter of visual appreciation and taste. This is not a matter of luxury, it is a matter which has led to all sorts of grotesque happenings in fields as diverse as archeology, tourism, and so on. It is our lack of awareness of visual amenity and appreciation which leads to the desperate things done by local authorities and indeed by Bord Fáilte themselves on occasions—putting road signs in all sorts of ridiculous places and contributing to the neglect of our national monuments. If we had any real appreciation of their artistic merit we would not have left them lie the way so many of them have been allowed to lie. The problem of improving visual appreciation is one which I should like to see tackled and dealt with through education. I know tribute has been paid to the National College of Art, and looking back I must honestly say I am not aware of the National College of Art having made a tremendous contribution to the improvement of visual appreciation in our society or to artistic leadership. It is possibly the primary schools, where we have had teachers who could not be described as artists, which have made a tremendous contribution in this regard. So have our universities. Some of the universities, by way of evening courses, have made a tremendous contribution to an awareness of art and the value of art through lectures in art appreciation, art history and so on.

Also the National Gallery and the staff there have made major contributions in this field. The National College of Art, for whatever reason, it seems to me has not done as much in the past as it might have done. I hope that now at a time when the visual arts seem to be getting some stimulus in our society— and perhaps it is topical to be discussing this matter during the Rose season— this new College of Art and this board when established will pay particular attention to their role as moulders of taste in society and as educators in the awareness of visual art.

I do not in any way underestimate the problems facing any college of art because it should be both a context in which artistic genius may be encouraged to emerge and one in which skills are taught to craftsmen and one which would help in teaching and equipping those who in turn will have the ability and skill to teach artistic appreciation, artistic workmanship and so on to other people. There can be quite a strain between these two roles, on the one hand of being the birthplace of genius and, on the other hand, of straightforward teacher training, craftsmanship, whatever one likes to call it.

I think the formulation and design of the courses and the range of subjects available in any college of art are of very great importance. I am not quite clear if a national college of art working within the given terms of reference could run courses in language and literature for their students—possibly courses in aesthetics, philosophy and history. These subjects should be part of basic teaching in a national college of art. They help students to see art in its full social and economic and, indeed, artistic context. This is extremely important.

As far as I know art colleges all over the world are often the colleges which run into the same problems as we have run into, namely, difficulties between students and staff—major ideological differences of opinion between students and staff. Indeed, there have been closures of art colleges in Britain and France. One of my theories as to why this happens is simply that a person with a visual gift may be a person who is extremely weak in other aspcts of conceptual analysis—he is not very good at reasoning, dealing with committees or whatever it may be. For example, probably artists throughout history have made extraordinarily bad politicians as against trade unionists and industrial workers in the revolutionary tradition who have played a much greater part even though, on the face of it, they appeared to have much less talent.

It is for this reason that trade unionists and people working in industry learn to work in a social context, learn about committee procedures and have a greater awareness of the general relation between ideology and life. Even though they share the same radical thoughts as radical artists they are much less likely to be anarchistic. In this way I may even be suggesting that if one widens the range of courses and the range of education in a college of art and if it is appreciated and if the students get involved in something from this study this may help to make them less anarchistic in their tendencies.

Taking a brief look at the terms of reference of the board, I think there is nothing in the Bill which in any way would inhibit relationships between the National College of Art and other educational institutions in all parts of this island, North and South. It seems that, particularly in the artistic field, artistic education and artistic vision is enriched by contacts with other people of other interests and other skills. It is important that the National College of Art and Design should have full freedom in this respect.

I referred briefly in passing to the nature of artists and their personalities. It is partly because of this that artists are a peculiar section of the community and it is often difficult to deal with them in normal ways. For this reason we should not be too surprised that discipline has been a real problem in the National College of Art. I should hope that whatever disciplinary machinery may be established by the board of the new National College of Art and Design it should be as flexible and as humane as possible.

I note the power of the National College of Art and Design under this Bill to establish committees of various kinds. It would be a good idea if there were a disciplinary committee of some kind which could deal initially with any disciplinary problems arising in the college. In that way there is an opportunity to go over the difficulties of any particular case and then the power of recommendation to the board, which gives time for appeal, time to think about the situation, and in that sort of climate it is much more likely that one will bring about disciplinary justice which would be seen to be fair and expected to be such by all the parties involved. As a staff member in Trinity College I think the idea which at the time seemed revolutionary, almost of a disciplinary nature, has in fact worked extremely well.

Likewise, it is important that the administration of the new college should try to shake off any bureaucratic attitude and try to deal with correspondence and relationships with the students in a straightforward businesslike way which one expects in the normal, relatively small independent educational institution. It is extremely important if one is to retain the confidence of students that their letters should be answered promptly, that they should be dealt with courteously and that the administrative staff should be accessible to them. These are points which one cannot stress too often to an incoming board with a difficult job.

I should like to end on the point which was made by the Minister elsewhere that apart from this Bill we all look forward to the time when there will be new buildings and facilities as well which will give the National College of Art and Design a good start and a real opportunity to provide the students with the education which we should like to see and, indeed, to provide the staff with the facilities they need to teach the full range of expertise and competence which they have.

I have no idea of the site or plans but I hope that whatever happens it will be something which will contribute in the near future to a solution of the problems which are faced generally in this complex which contains the National Gallery, the National Library and the National Museum, particularly the National Library and the National Museum which are complementary in many ways to a National College of Art. They cannot be an effective complement as long as they are restricted with difficulties of accommodation and so on as they are at present. I hope that any move on the building front or on the facility front where the National College of Art and Design is concerned will also be a move which will help their comrades in art in the National Library and National Museum.

Mr. Horgan

I can quite easily sympathise with the Minister's plea for an end to recrimination about the College of Art. The Minister came to the College of Art and the problems associated with it comparatively late. These were problems which had been aggravated by the way in which attempts had been made to solve them before he became Minister for Education. I do not intend to go into recriminations as he has asked us not to but I should point to the physical fact that on several occasions in the last two and a half years and during the present Minister's term of office the doors of the College of Art have been locked against their students. This is in itself a sort of indictment as to what has been happening. Whatever one may say about students, however conservative one's views about students may be and however dangerous a class of persons they appear to one, it cannot be denied that it takes two people or two groups of people to make a quarrel of the magnitude of the quarrels we have been witnessing in the last couple of years. I think there is room for a certain amount of modest breast-beating on the part of the Department for the way in which things have been allowed to become sour and bitter during the last few years. There is probably an innocent explanation for much of this. It is not an excuse but in so far as it is an explanation I think it should be examined. To my mind what is happening in the Department of Education as a whole— and it seems to me that the College of Art difficulties show us in a particularly vivid way what is wrong—is that there is some sort of log jam. It may simply be that officers, at various levels within that Department, are passing the buck upwards all the time and that they are not assuming the modest degree of responsibility towards decision-making they are entitled to have as civil servants. Looking at the Department of Education and their activities one gets the impression of a very old and rather rusty searchlight that can be trained on only one subject at a time, with much creaking and flaking of rust, and screws dropping out of holes and such things.

With the best will in the world we want more from the Department of Education than this. If what is wrong is simply that there are not enough people in the Department, then the Department should be given more people to enable them to shine their several spotlights simultaneously on different areas of inquiry and not to have to stagger fitfully, if I may mix my metaphors, from one to the other as the mood takes them or as electoral or other pressures determine. I am not in favour of bureaucracy but if we are to have a bureaucracy let it at least be an efficient bureaucracy and let the Minister make his case in the appropriate quarter—I suspect largely with the Department of Finance—for the kind of resources which will enable him to fulfill to a greater degree his responsibilities to the Oireachtas and indeed to the educational system of the country.

This, in very broad terms, is something that has to be said. One wants to see a Department of Education who are innovatory, who have great expertise, skill and knowledge available to them at the highest level and where the Minister has the best of all possible advice to act on. To have this situation we must somehow clear the present log jam within the Department. Decision-making, while the ultimate responsibility rests with the Minister, must be spread a little more evenly within the Department. The Minister as I said, should be given the resources to enable him to do this.

It is not so long since we saw the Minister in this House with other legislation and I suspect that it will not be very long before we see him here again. We seem to be making up for the decades during which there was little or no education legislation with a positive glut of education legislation. While this may cause heartburn in some quarters, I must say that we are very glad of the opportunity to give our educational system, in so far as we can, the kind of parliamentary scrutiny which for so long it has lacked.

Unfortunately, the willingness of the Minister to bring legislation into this House, I think has not always been matched by his willingness to provide us with all the relevant information on which we should be making our decisions. I am not accusing the Minister of concealment; I am suggesting that he has a sort of minimalist approach to the question of education legislation the advantages of which are very real and obvious, seen from the point of view of the administration, but the advantages of which are equally real and equally obvious to Members of all sides of the House and, indeed, for the future development of the educational system. If I may instance an example of this, I should like to choose the Vocational Education (Amendment) Act which the Minister introduced here not so long ago and which, as it were, slipped very quietly through——

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

While the Chair does not wish to confine the speaker unduly, references to past Acts are not appropriate in so far as the matter has been decided or to future Bills in so far as there will be an opportunity to debate such Bills at a later date. If the Senator focused a little more closely on the present Bill it would be more helpful.

Mr. Horgan

I will endeavour to do as you suggest. I can make the same point without having to refer to the previous Act. It is a point which has already been made in the Dáil by Deputy FitzGerald. In one section of the Bill which we are at present discussing there is a reference, although not by name, to what will be the equivalent of the CNAA in Britain, in other words, the body which the Minister proposes to establish to give, make and maintain standards for the award of diplomas and degrees other than university degrees. We are left, reading this Bill, with the impression of a whole grey area and with no very clear idea of what kind of structure is to be built to fill it. This is particularly true of the relationship which may or may not exist between the proposed new College of Art and Design and any other educational institution at present existing or to be created in the future.

I appreciate that the Minister needs to give himself a reasonably free hand but he would be paying a greater compliment to the House if he gave us a clearer idea of what precisely he proposes to do with this free hand that we are giving him. It is here that I cannot, in a sentence, make the point that I perhaps might have been making long before but if, during the previous debate, the Minister had told us what precisely he proposed to do with the Vocational Education Act when it had been passed, I think we would have had a better debate here.

This is why I regret the shortness of the Minister's introductory statement on this Bill. There are still all sorts of questions which have not been cleared up and which could be cleared up by the Minister to his credit and to the credit of this House. I do not believe he is hiding anything; I do not believe he has anything to hide in the matter of genuine educational development. Where genuine educational development is concerned we have everything to look forward to and I should like to see the Minister being a little less modest about this.

I should like him to tell us in more detail precisely what he proposes to do with this institution and where he sees it as fitting into the scheme of things generally. Otherwise, when we pass this Bill we will have passed it without any idea of the place this College of Art and Design is to have in the educational structure of our country. We shall have no real opportunity to discuss in this House any future arrangements which the Minister may try to make and which may be very far-reaching in their effects. Through simple lack of information at this stage, we may be denied the opportunity to give parliamentary scrutiny to a very important subject. In this connection, while underlining what Professor Kelly said about the Minister's reference in the Dáil to a firm of architects, I should like to lay particular stress on the second matter which Professor Kelly mentioned and to which he himself did not devote a great deal of attention. That was the question of the site.

The Minister told the Dáil that he has a site. Why are we not to be told where this site is? I find it extraordinary that this sort of information should be denied to the Houses of the Oireachtas at this stage. The Minister should tell us or give us some very simple reason why he should not, or does not want to, tell us at this time. If I may make the point even more directly, it has been suggested that the new College of Art and Design will eventually find its place on the site of the new technological complex which is proposed for Ballymun. I should like to ask the Minister plainly if this is the case. All sorts of issues are involved in the creation of the proposed Ballymun complex.

I know the Minister has not yet finalised his opinion about this but if we are to discuss the future of the proposed College of Art and Design we should be told whether we are to discuss it in terms of an institution which will be standing by itself on a particular place with no relationship to any other institutions or whether we should discuss it on the basis that it will eventually, and perhaps in the reasonably near future, form part of a polytechnic type of institution in the Dublin area. These are two very different situations and we deserve to be told which one we are dealing with.

In this connection, again we should be grateful for a firmer undertaking than we have already got from the Minister about the designation of this college as an institute of higher education.

Business suspended at 6 p.m. and resumed at 8 p.m.

Mr. Horgan

Before the adjournment, I was asking the Minister to clarify certain matters relating to the future place in the higher education system of the proposed new College of Art and Design.

I should now like to add a third question to the two suggested by Professor Kelly. Professor Kelly's questions related to what the Minister has stated in the Dáil, that is: who will design the new College of Art and where will it be built? The question I should like to ask is: who is going to pay for it? It has been suggested that a substantial proportion of the funds being made available for the new College of Art and Design are coming from the World Bank. If this is true I should like to hear the Minister confirm it. I do not wish to give the impression of a person sniffing out a conspiracy, but to obtain information from this Department is almost like opening a bottle of Guinness with your teeth. It does not seem to want to come. I have heard it suggested that the reason for the change in the main style and title of the new proposed college to include the words "and design" is that the source of capital finance that is being made available by the World Bank for this venture would not be available if we were just replacing an existing institution. World Bank loans are essentially development loans. They are usually tied to new ventures and the Government will not get very far with the World Bank if they are looking for money to shore up a creaking system.

Professor Kelly expressed puzzlement as to the reasons for the addition of the phrase "and design" in the title of the college. In my experience, when Governments add words which were not there before to other words, especially to legislative instruments, there is a reason for it. This line of argument has been brought out by Senator Kelly and other Senators. I believe this is a possible reason for the change in the title of the college and I should like the Minister to confirm this.

Assuming the truth of this report does not necessarily lead to criticism. There are people who, for reasons which I have never had adequately explained, see the World Bank as some kind of extension of international communism. I do not share this view. The World Bank are more dedicated to maintaining the status quo than to subverting it. However, when a body such as this provides capital finance for countries who need it; it may or may not have various strings attached. I am asking the Minister a string of questions based on the hypothesis that this money is coming from this source. If this is so, are there any strings attached and, if so, what are they? I think the Minister will get every co-operation from this side of the House if this is the case: I do not automatically look on this as the death knell of the new institution, but one would like to know.

The second consequence of the addition of the words "and design" to the title of the college is that, if the new institution is to be devoted not only to art but to design, all sorts of questions arise about the future of design education. We are a small country and the Minister would be the first to agree that we should not waste our resources. Yet he must admit that we have an Institute of Design in operation in Kilkenny which is costing the State almost as much as the entire operation of the College of Art is costing at the moment.

If the new College of Art is to be also a College of Design what will happen to this other centre? Will the two institutions be rationalised? I see no reason why they should not because, as I said, resources are scarce and if we are going to use our resources to the best advantage and if these words "and design" mean more than just a sort of verbal fiddle designed to enable us to tap a certain financial source then things should be rationalised and there should be a better spending of public money in this important industrial and economic field of design.

Many students in the college who have in the past objected to certain things that are happening in design in this country have a point when they express their worry and their sense of alarm. In so far as I understand what they are saying—and sometimes they do not always express themselves in the clearest possible terms—the students of the College of Art at the moment are aware that they have been slowly pulled out from under one type of tyranny or oppression, if you like—this is the sort of language being used—but are very much afraid that they will be plunged into another form of tyranny. The tyranny from which they see themselves escaping is the tyranny of the direct control of the Department of Education and of the academic traditions of a school of artists who, for all their worth, do not really represent the main stream of Irish artistic activity at present. Lots of the students, and I daresay several of the staff as well, have been driven to many of the things that they have been driven to precisely by their growing sense of frustration at this oppression, by which they felt they were limited, and by their anxiety to be free from it.

The Minister proposes, although he certainly would not use this sort of language, to free them from this tyranny. But what the students are now afraid of is that they will now exchange this rather old and inflexible tyranny of the direct control of the Department of Education and the academic control of an unrepresentative group of Irish artists, for the tyranny of technocracy, for the tyranny of the organisation man in our society, for the tyranny of the men who believe that all mankind's arts and talents are ultimately of no use unless they are bent towards the making of money. Things have been said which give substance to the students' fears on this ground.

I do not think one can say simpliciter that students of art and design have no desire to aid industry. This would be a very facile and simplistic way of looking at the situation, but it is also true that many of the students in this institution, and I would presume in the institution which is to take its place, have very distinct ideas about the way in which industry and commerce, and ultimately political institutions, should work. Their opposition is not an opposition to the concept of design and its usefulness in industry but it is an opposition to the uses to which creative talents are put in an acquisitive society. I find myself completely in sympathy with them on this. I would sincerely ask the Minister that when he is appointing people to the board of the new institution, to appoint people who will take an open-ended and creative view of the kind of processes that go on in a College of Art and Design. I ask him not to appoint people who believe that art and design are useful only in so far as they are useful to commerce or balance sheets, because the fact is, and he must know this, these things cannot be measured. An attempt to judge an institution like this by its profitability or in terms of its contribution to a particular kind of commercial economy is ultimately one which will do very serious damage to the institution concerned. The Minister should take all this into account.

I welcome the Minister's decision to have two students elected to the board. In broad terms I have been looking for parallels and it seems to me that the proportion of directly elected students and staff which is four out of a number between eight and 11 is as much as we can expect. What I would like to see is this principle extended throughout the college, to committees, academic boards and other structures which they create to help the college fulfil its function. Here I must say one finds oneself in a rather difficult position because if the Minister had kept the powers that he had previously allocated to himself under the earlier versions of this Bill he would, in fact, be able to ensure that the principle of student representation was maintained at all levels of the college's activity. He has now given up this power and, therefore, cannot ensure student representation at the various levels of the college activity. This is, on balance, a gain but, at the same time, when he is appointing people to the board of such an institution he should make clear to them his own belief in the need for adequate student representation at all levels of the college's life and, while not necessarily extracting undertakings from them, at least satisfy himself that they have broadly similar views to his own on this matter.

There is one danger with regard to student representation of which I imagine the Minister is aware, but if he is not I will make him a present of it. This is the danger of under-representation of students. It is very easy when one tries to involve students in the running of institutions to settle for the smallest possible representation which tends to become token representation. The representation we have in this Bill at the moment is more than token representation. I do not think it is enough, but it is much better than token representation and I am glad to see it there. But there is this danger that when you appoint tiny groups of students to large boards of committees, sometimes perhaps even only one student, that particular representation becomes so isolated and depressed by its sense of powerlessness that it naturally reacts against the committee or board and, indeed, against the whole system. The students outside who see this "Uncle Tom" type of representation and know very well that it is powerless and inadequate will be all the quicker to adopt radical and militant measures to protest against what is really no more than sops thrown in their direction. There is a very positive benefit to be gained from arranging for the election from ever-increasing numbers of students and staff to boards and committees. I am sure it is something which the Minister would welcome except that if there are more students and staff represented on committees and boards like this we eventually arrive at a situation in which it becomes very very clear that the lines of division, the lines of ideological conflict, if you like, in educational institutions are not drawn with students on one side and staff on the other.

Senator Keery made this assumption and it is a very rash and a very strange assumption to make. The events in University College, Dublin, in the last couple of days would tell us if we actually needed the evidence, that this division as between students on the one hand and staff administrators on the other, is a totally false one. But as long as a Government insist on giving only token representation to these very powerful, valid interests in the system of control over the institutions of which they are a part, that Government will continue to underwrite this whole division which will continue to create situations in which militancy takes over. They will continue to make trouble for themselves.

The real line of dispute and division, certainly among students, certainly among staff, and I suspect also very often among administrators themselves, are very much more complex than people who tell us that the conflict is always between student and staff would have us believe.

In broad terms then I welcome this Bill. It was very much improved in the Dáil. I like to think that it will be improved even further here and that the Minister will not scruple to accept any amendments which may seem to him to be called for. There is just one particular detailed point which did occur to me on this matter of the election of student and staff representatives to the board. It is that, whereas it is provided that the first appointment under the subsection relating to students shall be made as soon as reasonably may be after the establishment day, there is no provision relating to the nomination by members of the academic staff. In other words, this Bill tells us, rightly, I believe, that there is a certain sense of urgency about the election of students to the board of the college but there is no writing in of a similar sense of urgency in section 6, subsection (6) which relates to the election of members of the staff. It is a small thing to ask for that members of the staff should be in no worse position in this matter than the students.

Micheál Cranitch

Is fíor don Aire Oideachais nuair adeireann sé nach inniu nó inné a thosnaigh muintir na hÉireann ag cur suime i gcúrsaí ealaíne. Is cúis mórtais dúinn na seoda luachmhara atá le feiscint ins na hailéirí, ins na hiarsmalanna, ins na leabharlanna. Na healaíontóirí agus na ceardaithe a sholáthraigh na seoda sin dúinn d'oibríodar go dian dícheallach san ar feadh na mblianta fada ag foghlaim na céirde agus ansin nuair a bhí an chéard foghlumtha acu bé an cuspóir a chuireadar rómpa ná oibriú "chun glóire Dé agus onóra na hÉireann". Dar ndóigh ní stailceanna ná aighneas a bhí ag déanamh buartha dóibh ach fiúntacht agus feabhas agus áilleacht a gcuid oibre.

Anois tá dlúth-bhaint ag ealaí agus ceardaíocht agus dearadh le saol gach duine againn, ní hamháin ó thaobh na háilleachta de ach ó thaobh tionscail comh maith. Ba dheas ón Seanadóir Keery na hoidí ins na mbunscoileanna a mholadh as ucht an tsuim a gcuireann siad san ealaí. Fiú, sarar cuireadh ealaí agus ceardaíocht ar chlár na mbunscoileanna, fuair na daltaí oiliúnt—a bheag nó a mhór di—ins an abhar sin.

Sa Characlam nua, tá áit faoi leith gan dabht ag an abhar ar an gclár. Is fiú an giota seo a léamh as Lámhleabhar I An Oide, Cuid I, Curaclam na Bunscoile, Caibidil VIII:

Baineann an páiste sásamh thar meon as gníomhachtaí Ealaín agus Ceardaíochta: tugann siad deis do cibé cruthaitheacht agus ealaíontacht atá ann a chur in iúl; géaraíonn siad a íogaireacht agus forbraíonn siad a thuiscint do dhearadh, do ghréas, d'uigeacht agus do dhath sa saol mór thart timpeall air. Is iad is bun do chuid mhaith scileanna agus ceirdeanna traidisiúnta ar bhain fir agus mná leis na cianta tairbhe agus sásamh astu agus is orthu a bhraitheann cumas oiriúnaíochta agus fonn fionntrachta sa duine. Ar éigin a d'fhéadfadh gné ar bith eile den churaclam a oiread sin a dhéanamh chun intleacht, samhlaíocht, tabhairt faoi deara agus deaslámhacht a chothú in éineacht.

Reference was made earlier tonight to the title of this Bill and to the title of the board which will soon direct the College of Art. It is interesting to note that since 1746, when the old Metropolitan School of Art began, various bodies have been directing their activities. The first to take charge were the Royal Dublin Society who actually founded the Metropolitan School in that year. Later on we have the Board of Trade, the Department of Science and Art and later the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland. All through those years excellent work was done in providing courses for sculptors, embroiderers, weavers, painters, silversmiths et cetera. Indeed, for a number of years subsequent to the take-over by the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland, considerable work was done in the areas of metalwork and enamelling, mosaic, embroidery, wood-carving and the school —as it was called then—did achieve eminence for the standard of its stained glass and painting.

Later on in 1924 control was assumed by the Department of Education and in 1946 the National College of Art, which was an extension and a development of the School of Art, was established.

At the moment I understand there are three schools within the College of Art: the School of Design, the School of Painting and the School of Sculpture. I have not the actual figures for whole-time students before the college was closed, but I am sure that when this Bill has been passed and when the board get under way the new College of Art, or, to give them their new title, An Coláiste Náisiúnta Ealaíne is Deartha, we will go from strength to strength.

In this connection I should like to refer to one or two points from the Minister's speech. He drew our attention to the fact that provision for teacher and student representation on a board such as this is the first occasion on which such a concept has been enshrined in legislation and given statutory basis. That is a wonderful step forward. It is very pleasing that such a principle is about to be enshrined in legislation. In the times in which we are living, many young minds are inquiring, and, indeed, inquiring in a legitimate manner—and not all those inquiring minds engage in futile protestations and useless and provocative marches—and these young students should be given a voice in the running of the affairs of these colleges and third-level institutions. It is a step in the right direction, because the sooner these people are given responsibility the sooner they will live up to it.

I would very much commend the Minister's sentiments and the sentiments of the Department when the Minister says "I have never claimed that a Government Department is the proper body to administer the affairs of the College of Art. This is a view which is fully shared by the officers of my Department". That is very sensible when one is dealing with a subject such as art or music. If we take the three principal areas of the human mind—the intellect, the will and the emotions—we see straight away that while the intellect is concerned with various forms of activity, like mathematics and science, the area of the mind which is taxed to the full in such activities as studying or playing or providing music and the pursuit of art is the area of the emotions. Somebody made the point already that a person could be excellent at one particular activity in life in the line of art or music and he might be a criminal to boot, so to speak. When we read the lives of many of the great artists it is noticeable that all their activities were not quite as commendable as we would like them to have been.

Strictly speaking, a Department such as the Department of Education, which has to conform to rigid rules and regulations is not the best to run a college of art or a college of music. For that reason, the delegation of the running of the college to a board is most commendable.

There is a sentence to which I shall have to refer and it is this: the Minister said:

I have every confidence that under the aegis of the autonomous body that is being constituted under this Bill the College can develop in such a way as will enable it to cater in a fuller manner for the cultural and economic needs of the community in so far as they relate to art in its fullest sense.

When the Minister mentioned the community there he possibly had in mind the community of the Twenty-six Counties. I hope he has not in mind the community of the area around Dublin alone, because we have in Cork—and also to a lesser extent in Limerick and Waterford—much activity in art. I hope that when the time comes the School of Art in Cork will not be forgotten. It was built through the munificence of a Mr. Crawford away back in 1884. It was a beautiful building, and is still a beautiful building. Its only fault is that it is too small. Its construction showed great vision on the part of those who built it when one considers the size of Cork at that time and the cultural inactivity of the city. With the growth of industry people are becoming more particular about bringing their families and executives to particular areas unless they are facilitated so far as cultural education is concerned. By that I mean education in art, music and so on.

I hope that these points will not be forgotten when the time comes for an extension of space in the Cork School of Art. Sometimes we get very upset over these things. The latest rumour is that the Radio Éireann string quartet is being transferred from Cork to Dublin. These rumours are very disquieting. I have a keen interest in both music and art and last year we were very perturbed when the number of concerts given by the Radio Éireann Symphony Orchestra was reduced. Thanks be to God we got them back again, but the point is that Dublin should not be regarded as the cultural centre of Ireland. The wonderful works done by our artists during the Golden Age were not confined to any one particular part of the country. We find wonderful examples of their worth all through the country, both in the nature of Celtic crosses and illuminated manuscripts.

The Minister very rightly referred to the question of design. The new title of the college, he says, shows the stress we are placing on design. Good design in all its aspects will have a vital part to play in the highly competitive world which is facing all those engaged in production. That is a very vital point. I hope that point will be driven home by both the Minister and the Department of Industry and Commerce. No matter how good a product is, no matter how well made it may be, no matter how satisfactory it may be as regards price, it will be far better if it is well designed, well packaged and well presented. Until such time as we have proper appreciation of design as an essential part of art development, we can hardly tkae our place in the competitive world of today.

Mr. Alexis FitzGerald

I am not speaking on this Bill simply to be talking or simply to participate in this debate, or, to be fair, do I have very much to say on the subject. Anything I say will represent a genuine view of what ought to be on the record of the House, or at least one of the Houses of the Oireachtas, on this matter.

First of all, it is right to say that the Bill seems to represent a move in the right direction. Whether it is an adequate move in the right direction is a matter for discussion on Committee Stage. I should say why I think it is a move in the right direction. For a variety of reasons, some general, some specific, it is wrong that a school of art should be administered by a State Department. It is wrong that it should have been so administered and has been so administered at least since the State was founded. I do not know what the position was before the State was founded. It is wrong in general principle. A good academy is not administered by civil servants. Good professors or good teachers are not available if they are subject to the sort of disciplines and rules that naturally come to the mind of the civil servants. It is necessary that something analogous to the freedom of the university be enjoyed by giving freedom to the College of Art.

This seems to be a move towards establishing that. Whether it will be adequate or not depends on our view of the details in the sections. I do not propose to devote any time to that. It is probably worth the while of this assembly—who do not as yet receive the cinders from Vesuvius that fell upon Pompeii—to look at the National College of Art which is now to be called the National College of Art and Design. I leave to my colleague, Senator Kelly, the question of whether this is adequately translated into the Irish language.

What are the origins of the National College of Art? When did it get its name? What is the history of this matter? I should have hoped that the Minister would have helped us in our research in this matter. I have done a little research but I feel it is all too inadequate. I know that we had a report on this in 1949. It is printed and is available to Senators. It was dated 30th September of that year. There was an earlier report of a committee on which the person who prepared the report of September, 1949, was a member and which was produced in 1927. That committee recommended— and their recommendation was accepted —that what had previously been referred to as the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art should be known as the National College of Art. At this point I might pause to say that I liked very much what Senator Cranitch said about the Crawford School and premises in Cork which were favourably mentioned in the 1949 report. Previous to the 1927 report there was a commission in 1905 which reported in 1906. I hope that all of this is useful for a particular purpose which is not directly related to what is intended by this Bill. In so far as I understand it, the National College of Art whose history, as far as I know, has never been written but the information about which must be available to the Minister and his advisers—which information as a Senator I would be most grateful to receive—would seem to arise, to derive and to emerge from the Royal Dublin Society which was founded in 1731.

I am sure an Leas-Chathaoirleach will be very alert to keep me speaking on the National College of Art, should I try to wander and to think of this island as one of two islands, or to dare to suggest, as I do, with the information available to me, that the performance of our College of Art has been a lamentable failure if it is contrasted with the performance of its sister college in Belfast with administration conducted from Stormont.

I refer to the origins of this institute for a number of reasons. The first is the general reason that I think one of our failures with regard to the National College of Art, we had a commission in 1905, a committee in 1927, another in 1949 and there was no action whatever from any Government until we had rows in the streets. Then we have a Bill giving effect to some of the intentions recommended by all the committees and commissions.

I must emphasise that I recognise the patience of people here listening to me. This is a House in which you can talk without feeling that somebody is going to remind you of where your father was born or something of that kind. Here one is really able to talk about the matter in which one is interested. One of the reasons why I think the National College of Art has failed is one of the reasons why I think University College, Dublin, has succeeded. I wish to put that on the record. I am one of those who think that with all the paucity of funds University College, Dublin, has succeeded.

I simply name University College, Dublin, because I do not know anything about University College, Cork, or University College, Galway. With Senator Mary Robinson in the House Trinity College has its own successes recorded. It has a splendid history. There is no reason why it should not allow another institution to be praised by those who are its spiritual children, of whom I am one. There are no gains to be got from that. The university has succeeded because the university was, in fact, free and there is full credit due to the Government for that. The National College of Art has been a total failure because it was not free.

Here I break away from the fashionable talk and remind people of language which was once fashionable and is no longer so—the subsidiary function. There is no doubt in my mind that the Government or the central administration ought not to try to do what can be done equally well by other people.

Professor Quinlan

Hear, hear.

Mr. Alexis FitzGerald

Thank you. I have one supporter on this. I accept that, if you give freedom, you take the consequences of freedom. One has only to look at certain State bodies to realise that. People may make mistakes and lose State money. Would that be much worse than the present situation in the National College of Art where we have an institute which has not a good reputation and which is doing an appalling disservice to our young people? I did not stand up to say this without having canvassed many opinions on this point.

We do not have a lot of money but we could at least give our young people the opportunity of using their talents, particularly when we consider the situation. In case anyone thinks that I am going to be elected on the national executive of Fine Gael—assuming for one absurd moment that I ever ran for it—as a result of this speech, this has nothing whatever to do with party politics but it has something to do with the gentlemen who advise the Minister. Obviously, I would not think of persons here; I think simply of the system. What is happening here is a belated transfer of power, but how much of a transfer of power is it? This is the real question that we have to look at on the Committee Stage of this Bill.

I think I am correct—and if I am not correct I would like to be corrected—in saying that the National College of Art, which was once called the Dublin Metropolitan School, is in fact a child of the Royal Dublin Society. Has anyone told the students in the National College of Art that among the people who were trained in that institute were Sir William Orpen, Harry Clarke, Van Nost, who sculpted the equestrian statue of George II—prototype of those things that had to be blown up in the name of Irish glory — Ivory, who designed the Blue Coat School and laid out Blackhall Place and designed Newcomen's Bank, which is now part of the Dublin Corporation premises and Henry Baker, whose Rutland fountain our tottering feet may lead us to after this assembly closes if we turn left when we go through the gate—and which seems to be the special concern of the Archbishop to let decline and break up to all our disgrace. Baker was the partner who completed the building of the King's Inns. Among those who should inspire the students is also Patrick Byrne, whose name they never heard of but who built St. Audeon's, St. Nicholas's and St. Paul's, and we have, too, the father of Carson. Need I tell you anything more about Carson?

What do the students of the National College of Art know about these people? Do they know that when Barry was in abject poverty his works were bought by Edmund Burke from this same institute? Who was Edmund Burke? He did not die in 1916, nor would he have had anything to do with 1916. However, the same Edmund Burke would have known a great deal about our present problems.

I am trying to say something to the Senators who have been good enough to listen to me. It would be a good exercise if, apart from adding the words "and design" to the new name of the National College of Art, if we had a prospectus which told us and told the pupils something about this institute. One of the awful things about revolutions—we have been through revolution and we will be through another one—is how much is destroyed. There are people who are determined that things will be remembered. There is very much of the National College of Art that should be remembered.

I have said enough, if not too much, but I should like to be on record as using the phrase used by the father of our Cathaoirleach, in his speech on divorce in this Assembly. In so far as we have an institution that needs reform, that has the strength and the history of achievement behind it, which justifies its reform, we have it because we have been in association with those whom he described as "no mean people". I do not think that we will solve in the next ten years all the problems involved in the elaboration and development of national policy, unless we start saying in the marketplace, the public place, and in this place, what we say to ourselves about the realities of life, whatever they may be, whoever they may rub up against and apparently contradict the myths that we have allowed to grow up over the years, as something that we had to live with.

The Belfast Institute have been a great success because they were given the freedom which their equivalent institute in Dublin were not given. As I understand the position, that is an easy lesson to learn. We need a generosity of approach to the whole world if the talents of these people are to be fully developed, as I hope they will be after the difficult years we have to face.

I should like to make one final remark. I should be pleased to be corrected if I am wrong in the following statement, because it is not based on any published information, but on information from people who can very often mislead you, without intending to do so. About 80 per cent of the people who teach in the National College of Art, are on an hourly basis of pay, and have no security of tenure. If this is correct, what we need is not this Bill but a charter with provision for giving statutory appointments to people in this College of Art, if we value what they are doing. I hope I have not tired the House too much.

Mrs. Robinson

Like other Senators. I should like to welcome this Bill, realising, as the Minister said, the urgency of the position and realising also that it has been vastly improved in its passage through the Dáil. I hope that it will be further improved in its passage through the Seanad, and that it will achieve the purpose mentioned by the Minister in his Second Reading speech, where he says:

It is directed towards removing the College of Art from my Department and placing it under an independent governing body whose task it will be to manage the college and organise and administer its affairs....

Like another Senator who has spoken, I think we have a good way to go. The primary consideration is to have a statutory basis for the College of Art as soon as we may do so, so that this year's students, who have already lost so much time, will not loss any further part of the academic year, and will be able to get back to the business of learning about art.

In introducing the Bill, in what I would regard as a rather short and skimpy Second Reading speech on a matter such as this, the Minister made one very brief point on the wider context of the Bill. He said:

I have every confidence that under the aegis of the autonomous body which is being constituted under this Bill the college can develop in such a way as will enable it to cater in a fuller manner for the cultural and economic needs of the community in so far as they relate to Art in its fullest sense.

I agree with Senator Cranitch that the community means the community around the country and not just Dublin.

I suggest that this Bill will do nothing on the face of it to achieve that wider purpose. It is an attempt to change the administrative structure, and even that attempt, from my reading of the Bill, will not be successful unless further amendments are made. This is not even beginning either to understand or to improve the problem. I should like to put on record a quotation from a young art critic in the city, in relation to the College of Art. I am quoting Mr. Bruce Arnold in the latest edition of This Week, of November 12th, 1971, at page 38, where he says:

The biggest single danger—

this is in relation to this Bill

—is that the conventional outrage —the concern of parents and future parents of art students, the feeling for those who have lost their sources of income, the disgust at the broken promises and the victimisation of supposed Left-wing activists—will create pressures that are sufficient to resurrect a more sophisticated, more independent, more "liberal", better housed version of exactly the same thing. People will sigh with relief at the autonomy created for the new College of Art by the Bill, and remain totally blind as the same tired functionaries queue up for the same outdated jobs and resume teaching the same archaic subjects.

The great problem with the College of Art Bill is that it is not based on any examination of education in art, it is not based on the art seen in Ireland today and it will do little towards improving the position, either in relation to the education of students or in relation to the climate of opinion in the world in which artists live. Since we hope soon to have a decision on our application to join the EEC it is fair to look at the practice of other countries in relation to their culture. I turn to one country, which is a member of the European Community, France, where as long ago as October, 1966, the Minister for Cultural Affairs, Monsieur Malraux, said in the French National Assembly and I quote him in translation.

The Republics of Europe have been strongly attached to educational systems but none has created an artistic system. Why? Because art at that time was for the bourgeoisie, art was for the people who could afford to pay for it. Now, over the entire world people are demanding culture even though they often do not have a chance to enjoy it as yet.

What he proposed to do, and did, was to announce a new cultural programme, a detailed plan of cultural action, the setting-up of regional houses of culture —"Maisons de la Culture" round the cities of France. The basis of this is what we need in this country. We do not need a technical change of administration and a so-called autonomous body and the same story as before—out-dated methods, no proper approach. We need a programme for cultural development, just as we have had three programmes for economic development. We need a coherent plan in this connection and until this is forthcoming the problem will not have been faced; the statutory basis we are giving the College of Art will not free it from the tragic situation which brought the present system to a close. Moving to a larger building and providing more space will not solve the problems. They will only be transferred and, as Senator Horgan pointed out, we do not know as yet where they will be transferred to although the Minister is in possession of information about the site.

Although the Minister's Parliamentary Secretary has been given special responsibility for recreation and leisure, it is sad to see that recreation and leisure in this country seems to consist of sport and only sport. It is not realised that art is a community enterprise, that it should be brought to the community much more than at present and that there should be the creation of art appreciation in the fullest sense. It should be realised that we are not merely confined to the restructuring of the administration of a college of art which has lost its credibility, has lost any standing it might have had in the community. Despite the list of renowned names which Senator FitzGerald has placed on the record not many people have a high regard at present for the reputation of the College of Art and this administrative change of structure which is not giving it the necessary autonomy and freedom will not alter that. I regret the rather narrow approach of the Minister in his Second Reading speech where he has given no indication of being aware of the problems, being aware of the discontent in art education and in the climate in which the young artists work.

I should like to speak on the idea that the proposed College of Art is out-dated in its conception if it is to be based on the academic approach of teaching students for three or four years. Unless the College of Art is to be a true community venture and unless it will have the facilities which affect the artistic community, then it will not be very successful in reforming the existing position.

The College of Art should look to the practice in other countries, especially in Norway, of providing studios for young artists. It is expected there will be more facilities for students. Furnished studios should be provided for young artists who can use these in the first few years before they have established themselves and can set up their own studios. This might be done on a scholarship basis; it might be done by providing studios at a very low rent to the students.

The great problem in the College of Art at present is that the students either concentrate on design or on the more artistic side. If they are concentrating on art for itself at the end of their studies, they are very vulnerable. Our society does not offer them the outlets necessary to make a living in this country. You cannot devise a system of art education unless you are thinking in terms of providing outlets for that art, unless you say to the students, to whom you are teaching art: "The community will allow you to make an honest living in the country. You will be able to subsist in Ireland and there is sufficient community and State subvention for this." One of the ways in which to do this would be to offer studios and equipment to young artists. Some of the equipment is extremely expensive and it is very difficult for them to buy it. Unless the College of Art can be much more of a community effort than it has been to-date, unless it can change the whole practical outlook, it will not be a great improvement on what has gone before.

Looking ahead, the real problem for art students is to see how they can live, work and concentrate on their artistic work. Many artists who would prefer to stay in creative art are forced to go into design because they cannot live otherwise. Having proper outlets is another great problem. The first outlets one thinks of are the commercial galleries. The commercial galleries are under pressure to be profitable. They have to back successful named artists. They have to back artists whose pictures they can sell. The commercial galleries cannot seek out young rising artists, exhibit their work and hope to sell that work.

Another outlet is provided by the co-operative artists exhibitions, the Independent Artists or the Project Gallery run by the artists and into which the profits, if any, are ploughed back. They exhibit young artists and help them to find a market for their work. I speak with a great deal of seriousness and feeling because last night I went to the opening of an exhibition in the Project Gallery. It was an exhibition of the critic's choice, chosen by three young Irish artists. To my surprise, and the surprise of a good many people present, we were addressed by Colm Ó Briain, who is the chairman of the committee of Project. He informed us with great regret that it looked as if the project would have to close, that it was becoming bankrupt and it did not appear that it conld survive. This is a very sad reflection on the artist's world in this country.

The history of Project is indicative of what needs to be examined and what the comminity ought to be facing up to and considering. I give this brief history in the knowledge that near me is one patron of the Project Gallery, Senator Keery, who will at least listen to me if nobody else does.

The project was opened in 1967 by the then Minister for Education, Deputy Donogh O'Malley. It got no support at the time from the Arts Council, who were of the view that it was on the same basis as other commercial galleries, in spite of the fact that it was a cooperative and non-profit-making body. It began to organise exhibitions. After about a year certain specific exhibitions were guaranteed against loss by the Arts Council when applications were made.

In May 1969 it moved to a new premises, its present premises in Abbey Street. The premises needed to be overhauled. There were building and conversion costs. An application for a large sum was made to the Arts Council at that time with details of these costs. A warm letter of sympathy came back saying that the Arts Council could not possible underwrite past debts but that they would provide a guarantee against loss on future exhibitions. They did provide a guarantee against loss on exhibitions and even went further.

In May, 1971, they promised a guarantee of £1,000 a year. This is the first real guarantee that the gallery got. They have also got from Bord Fáilte a grant of £500 to subsidise music, drama and poetry activities, which are very much part of the work of the project. They are not just devoted to the graphic arts. That has meant that the project gets £1,500; the rest comes from patrons, private gifts or subscriptions. The sad thing is that despite the influence of this gallery in the world of young artists, despite the number of exhibitions, plays and exciting new ventures which they have presented, and sometimes their dramatically unsuccessful experiments, because these people are prepared to experiment, the project is now in a most critical state.

An attempt has been made to form a limited liability company for charitable purposes. It is hoped that the project may be saved. They cannot be saved without a great injection of money. They cannot be saved unless three different things happen in a very short time, that they can clear off the present debt and overdraft, have sufficient running costs to appoint a fulltime manager and have a reasonable certainty of viability by means of an annual grant which would be more than just a guarantee against loss, which does not allow anybody to plan.

The project then is an example of artists' attempts to help themselves and the way in which they are up against it, the impossibility, almost, of trying to provide an exhibition hall for themselves and as an outlet for young artists. The artists involved are very critical of State action in this matter, especially in the form of the Arts Council who were set up under the Arts Act, 1951. I was looking at the Arts Council's report for the year April, 1970, to March, 1971, and I find it rather extraordinary that in this report the council do not give any assessment of the position in relation to the arts in Ireland. There is no attempt to describe what is happening or even to describe what they are trying to do in any great detail.

It is a very skimpy report. It does not analyse the situation or show that the Arts Council are in touch with what is really happening in the world of young artists, the problems they are meeting and their attempts to cope with them. There are many complaints levelled against the body. They have a purchasing committee. This purchasing committee purchase the works of already well-known artists. I do not particularly grudge this. To some extent this can be a good policy but well-known artists are able to sell their work.

A good example recently was the opening of the exhibition of Louis le Brocquy. The Arts Council, prior to the opening, bought one of his pictures for over £1,000. They did not send anybody from their purchasing committee to the exhibition in the Project Gallery last night. They did not send anyone to an exhibition recently of John Behan's work, the well-known young Irish sculptor. They did not send one to the Independent Artists exhibition. These are the young, struggling artists.

The Arts Council, who have a considerable amount of public money at their disposal, did not send people to buy from them. They have an annual grant from the Government of £70,000 to parcel out. I understand, although I am subject to correction on this, that they were in a position to give a grant of £15,000 to Rosc. This has given rise to a great deal of criticism because Rosc was an exhibition of artists from outside Ireland. It was a matter certainly of great public prestige and importance that it be held here. The appropriate people to subsidise it are Bord Fáilte, the city of Dublin, anybody who is benefiting from it. The Arts Council should turn their attention first to young artists living in this country who are trying to make an honest living and who cannot cope with the lack of opportunity, outlets and a buying public.

Examination of the position of the National College of Art has to be done in the light of the approach to education, art appreciation and also the possibilities for these students. I well remember, when we were debating the Higher Education Authority Bill, that the Minister seemed to be aware that just to produce graduates from our institutes of higher education for export is a very sad and silly occupation, that there must be some way of advising students where they can go, of creating opportunities and job possibilities for them. In discussing the education of students of the College of Art we must discuss what opportunities they can have in a country such as Ireland.

It is an important matter that the voice of these artists be heard. That is why, like Senator Alexis FitzGerald, I think it is most useful to have a debate on a Bill such as the National College of Art and Design Bill in the Seanad so that the voice of the artists involved can be heard and read into the record of the Seanad. I should like to draw the Minister's attention to a memorandum, which was drawn up by a group of young artists that I have already referred to, a group formed in 1960 called the Independent Artists who are close to being a trade union of artists. They have proposals for a reform of the Arts Council. This memorandum was sent to the Minister for Finance in 1968. I do not propose to read it but I should like to refer briefly to some of its proposals. It is their proposal towards a working basis for a new Arts Council. They said in relation to the purpose and function of this Council:

The idea of an Arts Council in our day arises out of the realisation that the forces of a commercial democracy could lead to the obliteration of art for all but commercial or prestige reasons, and that its lesser offshoots could, and already have, run individual artists into the ground. For that reason the State becomes the patron.

The State has more of a function in the modern world in relation to art because it has to create the possible environment for it. The young artists propose a full-time director with a full-time working executive, with part-time representatives on various committees. They propose, and this should appeal to Senator Cranitch, regional centres around the country. They also state:

To make sure that the other parts of the country are fairly dealt with, and local talent is encouraged on local projects, it is advised that centres be set up in such cities as Cork; Galway or Castlebar; and say, Athlone or Dundalk for northerly regions. When the annual Government grant is being voted to the Council, each of the regional centres are to be allotted their own sums, and Dublin, Cork, Galway, Castlebar, Dundalk or Athlone be specified with the sums voted.

The memorandum emphasises that it is important that individual support for young Irish artists be considered:

The Council would always keep in mind its main objectives; promotion of the arts and support of artists— not the promotion of the country with art as a prestige label, as is the case now.

In my view Rosc is a bit of a prestige label.

There is separate money for tourist and prestige work. The money for the arts is to be devoted to the arts— and it will have plenty to do. The prestige harvest would still be considerable; at this level, the State is entitled to reap it.

There is a certain bitterness in the language of this report. It is a report drawn up by independent artists and not by lawyers, and to some extent for that reason it lacks cohesion but it does not lack resentment at the idea that the money of the Arts Council is not devoted to the working conditions, to the future and to creating possibilities for young Irish artists.

This then is one way in which the State and community can patronise the arts. Another way is to look at further examples of public patronage of the arts in other countries. John Behan has done a study of the work done in other countries and he referred recently in a newspaper article to this and in particular to the position in Germany where building legislation requires that a certain percentage of the contract price in either public building or commercial building goes to the decorative arts. John Behan advances the idea that if 1 per cent of the contract price of putting up public buildings or commercial buildings in this country had to be devoted to decorative arts, to the artistic works which would be incorporated in that building, this would be an enormous stimulus and an enormous outlet for young artists.

The whole purpose of going to the College of Art and acquiring skills would be rounded off by the community appreciating what they have and giving them an outlet for their work. It would be possible for the architect to be given a function in ensuring that 1 per cent was spent on artistic work and if this could be open to competition it would be more desirable that this 1 per cent of the contract price be spread among a number of artists other than necessarily endowing it all for one particular work or to one particular artist. This would vary due to circumstances. The important thing is that it would be a patronage in the best sense and an outlet for artistic work.

Another possibility is the system which prevails in Holland where apart from the ordinary stamps on envelopes through the mail there is also a special artistic stamp which costs a little more and anybody who likes can buy the more expensive stamp and they know as they buy it that any profit from that is going straight to the promotion of art in that country. Every time they stamp a letter with the more expensive stamp they are indirectly, or as directly as they are able to do so, subsidising the arts in that country.

In England under their local government laws they have the possibility for local authorities to consider imposing as much as a shilling or five new pence— it was sixpence—on the rates for specific artistic purposes. This, in the present climate dispute about rates in the country, might not be a very popular solution but it shows that even local authorities on a widely spread basis around the country can address themselves to this and can consider it in striking a rate. This whole climate of opinion, this whole community involvement in artistic work in the country and in promoting the artist, is crucial to a consideration of a college of art.

I now get back closer to the consideration of the College of Art itself and the suggestion that it must move away from outdated academic approach. There are various suggestions which one could make. One is that there must be more involvement from outside: more artists and more well-known personalities in the art world ought to be invited to come as visiting lecturers for a short period or even to deliver one or two lectures when passing through. In art more than in any other form contact with what is going on in the world is extremely important. There is an opening of young minds to ideas and stimulus.

If you have a very good artist or professor of art giving a top-class lecture, it can create a sense of excitement and can encourage people in following their pursuits. If somebody like Francis Bacon were to come over to the College of Art fairly regularly it would be a great stimulus and a very necessary one.

Secondly, proofsmen in expert fields should be encouraged to come. In the printing field artistic printing has become a very specialised field. There are special inks which need to be worked with in order that the artists will understand them. There is a lot more photographic and lithographic materials that artists must work with. If this facility were offered by the College of Art it would not just be to students passing through for a period of three years, it would be for young artists to go there and use as their centre.

This brings me on to what I have already mentioned, that students be provided with working studio facilities there. They ought to be provided with foundries in which they can learn how to cast bronze and cast iron et cetera. What you have then is a working artistic environment which is not just an academic approach to the problem.

So much, then, for the wider aspects of this College of Arts Bill. As I said in opening, I welcome it because of the great necessity to get a college of art working again in this country. I said I hoped that, in its passage through the Seanad, it can be further improved from its passage through the other House and we can end up with an autonomous body. We would have to look at the provision in relation to the appointment and removal of members of the board and at the necessity for the Minister to approve the scheme where students and staff members are appointed and various matters such as this.

I should like to ask the question— the Minister may have already answered this on another occasion—to what extent this College of Art Bill is linked to the Higher Education Authority Bill that we passed last term, especially in relation to section 14, subsection (3). Is the College of Art to be designated immediately as an institute of higher education which would remove the necessity for section 16 (2)? If this is not so I still think we ought to remove section 16 (2) because I should not like to require any free institute of learning in the country to be forced to submit reports at the beck and call of the Minister. This is neither necessary nor desirable.

These are Committee points about which I, and I am sure others, will be putting down amendments. The overall position is that we are not solving the problem by moving it to new premises under a semi-autonomous body. We are not solving the problems of a different approach and of new staff. We are not improving the position of staff-student relations. Therefore it is necessary to look at the subject in its wider context and to emphasise the need for change. The reason that things came to such a deadlock was—yes— bad staff-student relations, bad relations with the Department of Education and the obviously wrong position that a college of art would be under the Department of Education. I am glad the Minister admits that this is a very bad foundation.

All of this was only aggravated by the substantive approach to the teaching of art. The creation of an environment in which young artists can live needs re-examination and needs a change of attitude, needs community involvement to an extent that has not taken place.

Mr. Russell

I want to say very little on this Bill because much of what I had intended to say has been said very adequately. My main concern is to impress on the Minister the hope that the National College of Art will not become the Dublin College of Art and that the Minister will appreciate that outside Dublin, in other centres such as Limerick, there are many young students lacking the opportunities to develop their talents because of the miserly approach of his Department and also the Arts Council to which Senator Robinson has referred at some length.

I do not think that the Bill can be described as the Minister described it in his introductory speech, as "a simple measure". Technically, I suppose, it could be said that it is a simple measure, but merely by transferring the operation and control of the college from his Department to a board will not solve the problems that beset the College of Art today.

In the first place, as has been pointed out already—and I want to emphasise this point in particular—the board are not to be an autonomous body. They are not to be independent. The Minister will still have the power to hire and fire the members of the board. I also think he is making a grave mistake in not himself undertaking the appointment of the chairman. I further think that the director should not be a member of the board and that an opportunity should be given to each member of the academic staff to become chairman if he becomes eligible. I do not think a student should qualify as chairman, but that one of the academic members should in the normal course of events at least be eligible for the chairmanship.

As I see it, the board at the moment will not give the necessary emphasis and encouragement to the development of art among our students. They are to be a board without a heart. One thing that the reconstituted college board must have is a soul; they must have a feeling, they must be at one with the students and with the community at large. I cannot see that this type of board, with the rigid control which the Minister will continue to exercise over them, will have the necessary autonomy to make them independent and therefore alive and critical if necessary of the Minister and of his Department.

Senator Alexis FitzGerald referred to the necessity of having the Board of the National College of Art analogous to a university board and I should like to support his view in that regard. One of the reasons why the universities have generally been so successful is the degree of autonomy which they have enjoyed during the years. I am afraid this Board will not have that degree of autonomy and that is a pity. The Minister should have another look at that; certainly I think he should not retain the rigid powers over the membership which are set out in this Bill.

In case the Minister might think that I am talking through my hat in that regard, I speak as one who has had some experience of what Ministers can do. Under the terms of this Bill a Minister can fire a member without giving any reason; he can fire him without even hearing his case. This has not been unknown in the past to have been done by Ministers other than the Minister for Education.

I should like to see provision in this Bill for some form of associate colleges in other suitable regional centres. As I said at the outset, I believe that this college is to be centralised in Dublin; it is to be very much the Dublin College of Art; it is to be of little or no benefit to young students in the country areas. Some scheme providing for regional colleges associated with the National College of Art should be drawn up by the Minister. Perhaps this is just a first step in that direction; if it is I think the Minister ought to give it some encouragement.

There is a tremendous amount of undeveloped and untapped talent in this country. As every Senator who has spoken so far has said, there are numbers of young people who either through lack of grants or lack of encouragement or lack of proper teaching have failed to develop their full talent. It is true that we must naturally cut our cloth according to our measure. We are not a wealthy country and the amount of money we can devote to the arts and to culture generally must of necessity be small. I do not think anybody would disagree that we have been able to find money for other objectives far less desirable than the development of art and culture. It is 50 years now since the First Dáil included among its Ministries a Ministry of Art. At that time obviously they looked on the development of art and culture as something essential to the future of the country. The same outlook should permeate ourthinking on this new board. I hope the Minister will give us some idea of what he has in mind for the future development and encouragement of art among young artists.

I agree with the Minister in his references to the importance of good design. Our people are sufficiently artistic, and differ sufficiently from other countries, to produce types of design for everyday use that will be functional on the one hand and will have a distinctive character of their own. We are sufficiently conscious of our own traditions and past history to produce something that will be distinctively Irish and at the same time will be functional and suitable for everyday use, just as the Swedes, the Norwegians and the French have been doing.

In one way this Bill comes perhaps at a most opportune if rather hurried time in that we are on the verge of joining the European Economic Community. I hope that in that we will find a wider field and a wider scope for employment for our young artists. For that reason it behoves the Minister to give special attention to developing and encouraging talent among young people from their school days upwards on a community basis, not confined solely to the city and environs of Dublin, but right through the country at suitable regional points.

There are many instances, apart from what the Department and the College of Art have done, of the instinctive desire of the people to express themselves by voluntary art displays throughout the country. Some criticism has been voiced about the Rosc exhibition in Dublin showing merely the work of outside artists. That is certainly not true of the Rosc exhibition in Limerick which was a magnificent exhibition of Irish glass and which was wonderfully supported not only by what one might call the patrons of the arts or the elite but also by the ordinary people who came in their hundreds to view the art and craftsmanship of a bygone day. That same instinctive desire among the people to express themselves in designs and paintings or even in furniture is still there. It behoves us to do all we can to encourage it.

This is a Bill which can be improved and which I hope will be improved on Committee Stage. Above all else I hope it is only a starting point for the encouragement of art and good design not only in Dublin but throughout the country. Perhaps the Minister will give some indication of what plans he has for associate or analogous colleges of this type in other centres throughout the country.

Professor Quinlan

I should like to endorse what the last two speakers have said. Senator Robinson gave an excellent speech which the Minister could do well to study between now and Committee Stage because it contains many of the ideas that we may be able to incorporate in order to improve the Bill. It would be invaluable for sign-posting the way ahead in the future.

I endorse very strongly what Senator Russell said about the autonomy of the institute concerned. It is something which we can return to on Committee Stage. Senator Russell's contribution is very pertinent on this and shows that we will change very little if all the change is merely to replace the usual reply that this is outside the scope of the Department whereas, in effect, it is very much controlled by the Department or the Government at large.

It is nice to see that the Bill is directed towards moving the College of Art from the administration of the Department of Education and placing it under an independent governing body. It is our task to try to ensure on the next Stage that we have achieved this because what has been written into the Bill here is too little and too late. To my mind, our State Departments are probably the greatest colonisers of the world and represent the last vestige of colonialism. It is always the case of too little and too late. The parallels can be drawn between the actions in Whitehall and what they can give and what our Departments give. For years committees who have looked at this have said that the College of Art and the affairs of art were things that should not be controlled by the Department of Education or any other Department. Yet, these reports have been unheeded, unfortunately, until the turmoil of the past two years have brought events to a head.

The president of University College, Cork, Dr. McCarthy, made a speech yesterday criticising the self-same facet of the Department of Education—in other words, the ability to react in time and in this case the ability to remove the College of Art from the administration of the Department of Education and set it up on an independent basis. This should have been done ten years ago. The Department of Agriculture and Fisheries are not given to acting too hastily or giving away what they can hang on to, yet they divested themselves 12 years ago of agricultural education when the Agricultural Institute were set up.

We have a right to question what is wrong in our set-up here where all the various Departments of State hang on long beyond the proper time before letting other subsidiary bodies do their work. We should be concerned about the failure to do this. We should be concerned about the idea that seems to to get abroad that if reform is to be achieved, as in the College of Art, unfortunately there has to be violent protest and all sorts of actions which we dislike and disagree with. This seems to be the only means of creating change in our society. The students are protesting in University College, Dublin, in order to get the Government to realise that social justice is due to the student as well as to the other bodies to whom they gave increases to compensate for the higher cost of living.

An Cathaoirleach

This matter does not arise on this Bill.

Professor Quinlan

This arose from the streets, from the actions, from the turmoil of the past two years. Only for that turmoil of the past two years we would never have had this Bill before us today. There is a lesson to be learned there and I am appealing to the Government to try to learn that lesson. It is not particularly the fault of this administration or any other administration but it is a flaw in our system which prevents it from being progressive.

What is the remedy? The Bill says that a certain section will be dropped if the college is designated as a third level institution to come under the Higher Education Authority. We have a right to know if the Minister contemplates designating it immediately. It should be done. Also, has the Minister consulted the Higher Education Authority about the legislation setting up the College of Art? If it is contemplated that this should be a third level institute, then surely the body that are charged today with regulating third level institutes should have been consulted as to whether the provisions in this Bill are in accordance with what they regard as the necessary minimum marks of a third level institute. I venture to say that the Higher Education Authority have not been consulted because if they had been then many more of the provisions in this Bill would have to be altered if the Minister were ever to make an order to designate it as a third level institution.

It is inconceivable that any third level institution's officers and servants should be controlled by what is proposed in one section of this Bill, where they require the sanction of the Minister for their terms of appointment and remuneration. It is inconceivable that any third level institution would not have control over the regulating of their fees, yet there is a section which states that in this College of Art, designated or undesignated, its fees "shall be sanctioned by the Minister". If that had been the poor situation in which we found ourselves in the universities in the past year we would have had the Minister playing politics with our fees. Fortunately, we, at least, had control over that element of our university income. We were able to ensure that the fees kept reasonable pace with the devaluation of the £.

The Higher Education Authority could not possibly accept this. Neither could they possibly accept the responsibility for the provision of new buildings that is laid down in another section. The Higher Education Authority are the controlling body on this and not the Minister. Therefore, that section would have to go if this is to become a third level institution.

Section 5 (3) (a), which states that the Minister may by order assign any other function, is completely incompatible with the type of organisation that we envisaged for the future when we passed the Higher Education Authority Bill a few months ago. On Committee Stage we will have to ensure that these changes are made or else get an assurance from the Minister that the question of designating this institute or college as a third level institute would have to be accompanied by much more than a mere order from the Minister designating it as a third level institution. It will have to be accompanied by an amending Bill that will make all the amendments necessary to bring this into line with a proper third level institution.

The question of the governing body arises. The governing body are largely a joke, and a sick joke at that, when there is only provision for the nomination of four as against seven to be nominated by the Minister. No third level institution has such a governing body and there is no third level institution that would accept such a composition because there is no planner on third level institutions who would regard such a college as having any autonomy worth naming. I will propose on Committee Stage that we should alter this to ensure a minimum of a nominated majority on the governing body. This can be achieved by increasing the staff representation from two to five and the student representation from two to three. I am taking the odd numbers on that because I want the selection of the nominations to be governed by an election procedure which uses proportional representation to ensure that we get away from block voting——

Mr. O'Higgins

Do not be frightening them by talking about elections and proportional representation.

Professor Quinlan

I thought we were all in favour of proportional representation these days. We should ensure that we get away from block votes and block control so that every reasonable and identifiable section of opinion within the National College of Art is represented in this way.

The Seanad adjourned at 10 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 11th November, 1971.

Seanad Éireann debate - Wednesday, 10 Nov 1971

National College of Art and Design Bill, 1971: Second Stage.

An Leas-Chathaoirleach

Seanad Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 10 Nov 1971