Tairgim:—
Go ndeonófar suim fhorlíontach nach mó ná £10 chun íoctha an mhuirir a thiocfaidh chun bheith iníochtha i rith na bliana dar críoch an 31ú lá de Mhárta, 1960, le haghaidh Deontais d'Ollscoileanna agus do Choláistí, lena n-áirítear Deontais-i-igCabhair áirithe.
The House will note that the amount sought by way of Supplementary Estimate is a token amount. The purpose of this token is to give the House an opportunity of considering proposals in relation to the future accommodation to be provided for University College, Dublin. I shall begin by outlining as briefly as possible the events which led up to the present position.
The Catholic University of Ireland had been founded in 1854 by the Hierarchy, but as no part of it, except its Medical School in Cecilia Street, was officially recognised, it languished, especially after the departure, in 1858, of its illustrious first Rector, John Henry (afterwards Cardinal) Newman.
When, in 1908, the National University was established in response to some seventy years of agitation on the part of the Catholic hierarchy and the Catholic population generally for a State-recognised University at which attendance would be compatible with their religious principles, the new University found the Cork and Galway College buildings already available, as for half a century they had been in existence as "Queen's Colleges."
The Catholic University of Ireland, surviving as a non-recognised teaching institution under the title of University College, Dublin, was still installed in the two houses now known as Newman House, but with its Medical School in Cecilia Street so flourishing that the students at that School outnumbered all the rest combined.
When the 1908 Act incorporated University College, Dublin and the Queen's Colleges of Cork and Galway in the newly-established National University, the Dublin College began its new phase of existence in 1909 with Newman House, Cecilia Street Medical School and the Examination rooms of the "ghost" University styled the Royal University, the last a purely examining body which had been set up by the Government in 1879.
In 1909-10, the University College. Dublin, student total was 530. At that time, it was thought that the maximum number of students would never exceed 1,000 and plans were completed in 1912 for a building in Earlsfort Terrace for that number. The first war, however, intervened, and only in 1919 were the present facade and the Science side of the quadrangle completed, that is, less than half the building contemplated. In 1926, the Albert College and part of the College of Science were made over by the Government to University College, and in 1931 the old Medical School at Cecilia Street was transferred to a temporary building at Earlsfort Terrace. Since then until the present academic year, when it became necessary to make some internal adaptations in order to avoid a breakdown, no further building construction was carried out at Earlsfort Terrace.
During the 30-year period 1909 to 1939 the number of students in each of the three Colleges was increasing slowly but fairly steadily. The Dublin College had in 1938-39 reached the figure of 2,230, the Cork College 928 and the Galway College 669.
The numbers in the three Colleges in the current year are Dublin, 4,472; Cork, 1,448; and Galway, 926, and these increases during the last 20 years are the cause of the present difficulty.
It is not, however, to be taken from the juxtaposition of the figures for 1938-39 and those of the current year that the rate of growth during the last twenty years has been steady and uniform in all three Colleges. In University College, Galway, the figure for 1953-54 was 936 and since then has remained more or less static. The University College, Cork, figure for 1953-54 was 1,143 and is now 1,448, thus showing a tendency to move upwards. The figure for University College, Dublin, however, keeps climbing steadily and rapidly. In 1953-54 it was 3,528, in 1954-55 it moved to 3,703, in 1955-56 to 3,855, in 1956-57 to 4,072, in 1957-58 to 4,401, in 1958-59 to 4,480 and in the current year to 4,772.
A clearer focus on trends is perhaps given by recent figures for whole-time students in each College, which are as follows:
|
U.C.D. |
U.C.C. |
U.C.G. |
|
|
1955-56 |
3,537 |
1,214 |
876 |
|
1956-57 |
3,809 |
1,246 |
893 |
|
1957-58 |
3,904 |
1,258 |
875 |
|
1958-59 |
4,218 |
1,275 |
915 |
|
1959-60 |
4,452 |
1,302 |
889 |
The result of all this has been a continually increasing pressure on accommodation in each of the three Colleges up to the middle fifties, with a certain stay of demand since then in the Cork and Galway Colleges, but with the grip ever tightening on University College, Dublin and every prospect of its tightening further.
In face of this situation, several queries at once present themselves. The most obvious of these is whether we are turning out too many graduates. That does not admit of a simple answer, for we could, for example, be turning out too many Arts graduates while not turning out enough Science graduates. Leaving aside for one moment the relative output in the several Faculties, we find that our total number of University students from Ireland, which is about 8,000, is roughly in almost the same proportion to the total population of the State as is the case in England and Wales, Scotland, Denmark, Australia, New Zealand and many other countries, with all those other countries having had the same problem of increasing numbers, but straining every nerve to increase University attendance still further. Britain, for example, has about 120,000 University students at the moment, but hopes to have 170,000 by 1965. Australian Universities expect an increase of over 100% during the next ten years on the 36,000 students they already have.
The increase in University student numbers is therefore not confined to this country, but is a worldwide phenomenon. A characteristic of it everywhere is that it is only in the last ten years that the quietly expanding pre-war flow of students into universities has suddenly become a torrent. Everyone will recall that the twenties and thirties were a period when even the highest qualified graduates had difficulty in securing employment and even after the war, in 1948, grave fears were authoritatively expressed in Britain that that country would soon find itself with more physicists than it could employ. Now, 12 years later, no scientist or engineer need find himself unemployed for one day there.
In respect of this demand, especially for scientists and engineers, but also for all kinds of graduates, which has suddenly made itself felt throughout the world, our own country is still in comparatively quiet waters on the edge of the torrent. For that reason, perhaps, some of us who have left our student days behind may perceive only dimly that what has been happening is that to the unexpected demand for graduates, arising directly, but with a kind of delayed action, from the war, but having its roots in a complex of historical, social, economic and other causes, the response of youth everywhere has been instantaneous.
As the demand was unforeseen, so was this response unforeseen. To put the thing in a nutshell, the universities of the world, many of which had spent centuries in a semi-slumber, have, in a few short years, and, one may suspect, to their own surprise, been thrust, willy-nilly, into the forefront of national, and indeed international, endeavour, and have thereby attained an importance which has not been theirs since the end of the Middle Ages.
Although our overall proportion of University students would appear to be fairly normal or at least only slightly under normal, a second query might be whether the relative proportions of students in the various Faculties are of the right order or whether we are turning out too many B.A.'s or B.Comms. or scientists or doctors or agriculturalists or veterinary surgeons or engineers or architects or whatever it may be. The answer to that is that while at the moment the National University output of Bachelors of Arts, Bachelors of Commerce, Bachelors of Science, Bachelors of Agricultural Science, and Bachelors of Dairy Science is sufficient to meet the demand, there is no significant surplus of these graduates and comparatively little emigration from among them.
It is perhaps not generally realised that our secondary schools, for instance, employ almost 3,500 graduates, mostly of the Faculty of Arts, and that the normal loss by retirements and the increasing numbers of secondary pupils call for more and more of these graduates. If I may digress here for a moment, I should also like to inform the House that, despite criticisms one hears from time to time of the situation in our secondary schools, 89 per cent. of our recognised secondary teachers are University graduates, a percentage that, as far as my Department is aware, is by far the highest in the world. I mention this in no spirit of complacency, but as a simple fact to show that the position in our educational system is not so black as it is sometimes painted.
To return to the question of the output of graduates, the great majority of the fifty or so electrical engineers from the two electrical engineering schools, the larger one in University College, Dublin, and the smaller one in University College, Cork, find employment at home. I understand that of the some 40 electrical engineers who graduated last June from University College, Dublin, 30 found immediate employment in the Electricity Supply Board.
Although our electrical engineers are in very keen demand abroad, the great majority of them are absorbed by the E.S.B., the Department of Posts and Telegraphs, Bord na Móna, the Office of Public Works and other public and private concerns. It is true that some of the best graduates in electrical engineering do elect to go overseas for experience and further training, but many of these return later with the fruits of that experience.
All this applies also to the 40 or so mechanical engineers who are turned out annually from University College, Dublin, which with the exception of a small section of such work in Bolton Street College of Technology, is the only mechanical engineering school in the State. Chemical engineers also are produced by University College, Dublin only, but the output is only about six per annum, as the demand for them here is still slight.
Our main graduate export appears to be doctors from the five medical schools and civil engineers from the four civil engineering schools. The National University produces annually about 170 doctors and Trinity College about 60. It may be surmised that 100 of this total emigrate. Of the civil engineers, about 40 from University College, Dublin, about 15 from the Cork College, about 25 from Galway and about 30 from Trinity College, it may be surmised that over 50, or about half the total, emigrate. We could probably therefore do better and less expensively with a lesser number of medical and civil engineering schools, but the question would be which College or Colleges would be prepared to give up its school.
Moreover, it is the penalty of our graduates' unrestricted access to Britain and virtually unrestricted access to the United States and Canada and to the high remuneration there that if we are to have a sufficiency of doctors and engineers for ourselves, we must produce more doctors and engineers than we can absorb. There are also some 60 dentists who graduate annually from the three dental schools in Dublin and the dental school in Cork. Perhaps half of these emigrate.
There is also a certain amount of emigration among architects, of whom 25 or so are produced annually, about 20 of these from University College, Dublin, and about five from Bolton Street College of Technology. We may well be overproducing architects and I shall return to this problem.
Of the well over 100 science graduates produced annually, it is not precisely known how many emigrate, but we do know that we could use many more of these in the secondary-schools than care to seek employment there. Of our over 500 science teachers in, these schools, only about 50 per cent. are University graduates in Science. Let me assure you, however, that that 50 per cent. is a relatively high figure by comparison with most countries. Science graduates everywhere are not inclined to teach in view of the glittering prospects for them in industry.
Of the 40 or so veterinary graduates produced annually by University College, Dublin, I need not speak, for that they are badly needed is fairly obvious.
The over 100 commerce graduates from the National University Colleges find employment in business, or in the vocational schools, where of the total 360 or so graduates almost two-thirds are Bachelors of Commerce.
Of the annual 60 or so agricultural graduates produced from the Albert College, the great majority have so far found employment with the Department of Agriculture, with county committees of agriculture and in the vocational schools. In fact, at one stage, for lack of graduates in Agriculture, my Department had to institute special courses of training in order to have a sufficiency of rural science teachers. As far as I know, neither is there any great emigration among the Dairy Science graduates, who are produced by University College, Cork only.
It is worthy of note that the pattern of the number of students in the various Faculties varies little throughout the three Colleges of the National University.
By and large, it would appear that the three Colleges are not producing more graduates than we need, except in the case of doctors and perhaps civil engineers, and in a few minor Faculties. There is certainly no great surplus in the Arts Faculties and fortunately no great emigration so far in these. The emigration that does occur among graduates is of course part of the pattern of emigration at all levels. The general situation as to graduate emigration has, I think, been well put by one of the members of the Commission on Building Accommodation Needs where he stated:—
"The Commission has considered this aspect of University education and decided that if, as we all hope, some day in some way the economy of the country can be placed on a healthy progressive basis, we will need at least as many technical graduates as we are now training, and not to have them when they are wanted would be a greater loss than training them now for export."
In other words, the production of even a surplus of technical graduates —and, I would add, especially of Science graduates—is a calculated risk we must take if we believe that the country has a future. I would add also that not only if we are to progress industrially and economically, but also, if a world crisis comes upon us, we shall have to look to our own graduates, for we have no right to expect, nor are we likely to receive, expert assistance from any except those whose roots are in this country.
On the supposition, however, that there are too many University students, particularly at University College, Dublin, the suggestion has been made that the College authorities should take measures to restrict entry. In the light of the circumstances I have indicated, restriction of entry in the present age is a very debatable point, the more especially since the annual increase in University College, Dublin for some years has included a marked increase in entrants to the Faculty of Science.
In fact, however, the Colleges have taken such steps, in so far as lay in their power to do so. All three National University Colleges have for a number of years limited entry to their engineering schools to students who had obtained honours in Leaving Certificate mathematics or who had qualified in an equivalent special examination held by the Colleges. Some years ago all the Colleges limited likewise the number to the medical faculty. Similarly, the shortage of accommodation has imposed severe restrictions on the intake of the Dublin and Cork dental hospitals. In addition. University College, Dublin and University College, Cork have rigorously limited the number of Students they will accept from outside Ireland. At the moment, there are in University College, Dublin only 325 from outside Ireland, out of a total of 4,772 students.
Beyond that no College could go, as any raising of the standard of entry is a matter for the National University, not for any individual College. Since any raising of the standard of entry must apply equally to all three Colleges, its effect could be, not to alter to any significant degree the flow of numbers into University College, Dublin, but to divert from the National University generally the students concerned and also perhaps incidentally to have a serious impact on the finances of the Cork and Galway Colleges.
I am sorry to have to speak at such length before coming to the kernel of the matter with which the Supplementary Estimate is concerned but discussion of University education is infrequent and, when attempted, is often necessarily conducted without any comprehensive knowledge of the relevant facts. Accordingly, it seems to me that this is a suitable occasion on which to let the House and the country have some kind of general idea of the position.
I shall therefore give one more set of important facts in connection with the accommodation problem in University College, Dublin.
A view that is sometimes put forward is that the pressure on that College could be eased if some means were found of directing away from it to the local Colleges the flow of students from outside the Dublin area, if, for example, the students from the Munster and Connacht counties were not allowed to come to Dublin, and had to go to the Colleges situated in their own provinces. This suggestion takes no account of parents' rights, but even if such a solution were in some way possible, it would have no significance in relation to the continually increasing pressure on the accommodation in University College, Dublin, for the number of students attending that College from without a radius of 30 miles from Dublin has during the last ten years been decreasing. During that ten years the number of students there from anywhere outside a 30 mile radius from Dublin declined from 1,902 in 1949-50 to 1,727 in 1955-56.
It arose to 1,920 in 1957-58, but fell again in 1958-59 to 1,839, a lower figure than that for 1949-50. A graph would show the total number of students moving sharply upwards in the last ten years, with the line for the Dublin hinterland moving parallel to that, but the line for the students from outside the Dublin area horizontal for most of the period and dipping towards the end of it.
From these figures it is clear that the sole source of the increasing pressure on University College, Dublin, is that College's own hinterland, that is, Dublin city and the area within 30 miles thereof. The whole thing is therefore fundamentally a question of distribution, not of student population, but of the population generally. This will be more readily appreciated when it is considered that the Dublin hinterland is in the heart of the province of Leinster, which, together with the three counties of Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal, contains more than half the population of the State. As the last census showed a steady drift of population towards Leinster, it appears to be unlikely that the number of students seeking admission to University College, Dublin has yet reached its maximum.
The above, I think, establishes clearly that there is very urgent need of additional accommodation in a College which started out fifty years ago with 530 students and has now almost exactly nine times that number, with an additional almost 300 students every year to which it cannot, and at this stage of the country's development, should not refuse admission.
At this point it is perhaps fair to ask why was the problem of increasing numbers not faced until a short time ago. I believe I have already answered that. Neither the College authorities nor successive Governments can fairly be blamed for not foreseeing what almost no one throughout the world foresaw—a sudden and rapidly increasing need for, and therefore pressure on, University education. For example, it was only three years ago that the Australian Government decided to set up a Commission on its University problem, at almost exactly the same time as our Commission on Accommodation Needs.
In point of fact, at quite an early stage the University College, Dublin authorities had an inkling of the shape of things to come, for they made a number of efforts in the late forties to acquire property in the vicinity but unfortunately they were then working on an overdraft and so were unable on those occasions to exceed the bids of rival purchasers.
When all the property available at the time in the contiguous area had passed under the hammer and when the open ground further out on the south side of the city was gradually being taken up, the College took steps to extend its sports grounds at Belfield and approached the Government for the necessary capital therefor. This the Government provided, but on the clear understanding that it was not thereby to be taken as agreeing in principle to the transfer of the College to those grounds.
In 1951 the College Governing Body, despite their anxiety to remain on the present site, became finally convinced that the number of students would shortly be so large as to preclude the possibility of their being catered for in the Earlsfort Terrace area and in November of that year passed a unanimous resolution that:
"The Governing Body is of opinion that the best interests of University College, Dublin require that new University College buildings be erected on the lands owned by the College at Stillorgan."
Following examination by successive Governments of this proposal, a Commission was set up by the Government in 1957 to inquire into the accommodation needs of the Constituent Colleges of the National University. That Commission, with a Judge of the Supreme Court as Chairman and the other members selected from business and administrative circles outside the Universities, in its Report of May last found unanimously that all three Colleges require a great deal of further accommodation and, with a reservation of a special kind by one of its members, that there was no reasonable alternative to the transfer of University College, Dublin to the Belfield site.
The attitude of the members of the Commission at the commencement of their investigations to the question of the Belfield site can best be told in the Commission's own words:—
"We began our work by seeking for a solution of the College's accommodation problem in the vicinity of the main College building at Earlsfort Terrace.
"Every circumstance indicated to us that that was the proper course —the necessity for maintaining the physical unity of the College, the College's place in the city and its proximity to libraries and the galleries, the avoidance of disturbance to the life of the College which would occur if the College were to be moved, and considerations of economy."
It is thus seen that the Commission was very much alive to the great desirability of the College remaining, if at all possible, on its present site. After one and a half years' labours, however, during which it held thirty-three meetings, visited twenty different institutions, both at home, in Britain and on the Continent, and received evidence from numerous home and foreign experts and interested parties, it found itself forced to the conclusion again in its own words:
"In the English and Danish Universities we visited, we found that the authorities were dealing with problems similar to the problem of University College, Dublin. We met administrators and, in some cases, architects and building officers. We discussed the solution of the Dublin problem with them. Everything we heard of the experiences of these other universities has indicated to us that the right solution of the Dublin problem—and the only final solution for it—is to transfer the College, the entire College, to a new site of adequate size.
"The advice we received in these universities unanimously supports that view."
On the question of the College remaining on its present site by means of compulsory acquisition of the surrounding properties and the Commission's study of this aspect of the matter I shall speak presently, but before doing so there is one other alternative, raised in a reservation, as I have mentioned, by one member of the Commission, of which it is my duty to treat.
That fundamental point, as the member concerned expressed it, which has also been mooted from time to time by other persons and parties interested in the University problem, is the possibility of some kind of integration or amalgamation of University College, Dublin and Trinity College or of their courses.
The suggestion is not a new one. It has been put forward in different forms on many occasions during the last century. My own view of it is this.
Perhaps the severest test of the character of the Irish nation was when for many generations the great majority of the people, although, as they showed in their own way, thirsting for education, chose illiteracy and ignorance for their children in preference to the only State-provided system of primary, secondary and university education then existent in the world, which was on offer to them at the cost of an abjuration of conscience. No nation exists in a contemporary vacuum. We are all in part what our forefathers made us, and that ordeal of the 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th centuries has a bearing on the present day. It is, I believe, a result of that terrible choice that was imposed upon the forebears of the majority of us, that present generations of Irishmen are possessed of a peculiarly delicate and scrupulous sensitivity in relation to the right of parents, whether they be of the majority or minority religion, to have their children provided with a schooling that will be compatible with their religious principles.
While of course it would not be practicable for one single child or three or four children of whatever the minority religion might be in a particular locality to be provided with the type of school that would be in accord with the parents' choice in conscience, my Department, in accordance with the policy of successive Governments, has, as is frequently admitted on all sides, set a very high standard in its provision for special facilities enabling parents of the minority religion to send their children to the type of State-provided school they choose. I hope that that standard will always be maintained.
In accordance with the principle which I have mentioned I could not be a party to the creation of a position in which parents of any religious denomination, either that of the majority or minority, who seek University education for their children, should find themselves with no alternative to the placing of their children, in violation of conscience, in a particular educational institution. That principle is enshrined in Article 42 of the Constitution, which lays down:
"The State shall not oblige parents in violation of their conscience and lawful preference to send their children to schools established by the State, or to any particular type of school designated by the State."
To me that means that it shall not thus oblige them either directly or indirectly.
It is not my function to be the keeper of any other man's conscience, but it is my duty, as Minister for Education, to respect with the most scrupulous care the consciences of our citizens, both of those of the majority and minority religions. To the letter and the spirit, therefore, of the principle of the non-forcing of conscience, laid down in the Constitution, must be subject any question of a re-apportionment or redistribution or amalgamation or rationalisation, or whatever it may be called, of faculties or courses throughout the four University Colleges that may at any time arise.
Having said that, let me say also that I believe that there is a place and a due place among us for all four Colleges. Each of them I believe, has its own appropriate part to play and its own contribution to make to the building of the nation.
I come now to the vexed question of compulsory acquisition of buildings and lands in the neighbourhood, of Earlsfort Terrace. To this problem the Commission devoted an enormous amount of thought and labour, and I take this opportunity of thanking sincerely its Chairman and members for their work generally. As I have said, they started off with the conviction that the College should, almost at all costs, remain on its present site. Details of the Commission's study of the problem of the space potentially available and of their study of similar problems pertaining to other Universities are to be found in their Report where it is shown how, step by step, they were reluctantly forced to the conclusion that even in the direction of the canal the blocks of property concerned could not be acquired within a reasonable period except by the exercise, in large measure, of compulsory powers. "We would," they state, "hesitate to recommend the granting of compulsory powers. The disturbance to homes and to business would be too great."
The Commission considered also the possibility of compulsorily acquiring the south side of St. Stephen's Green and the east side of Harcourt Street as far as Hatch Street and also an extension of the College into the block bordered by Lower Leeson Street, Adelaide Road, and Earlsfort Terrace and reached the same conclusion.
It has been suggested that without compulsory acquisition single buildings in the vicinity could be acquired from time to time as they fall vacant, in the same way as single buildings or sites are occasionally purchased by industrial or business concerns. This suggestion, however, ignores the fact that there is a distinction between buying a single building or site for a particular purpose, with no intention of going beyond that, and the planning of a University College which must comprise many buildings. A University College, with its complex inter-arrangements for the united teaching of subjects to students in various Faculties, cannot be planned haphazardly in bits and pieces as they come into the market, and in addition, there is no guarantee that any particular building or site will be up for sale within a reasonable time.
Actually, the total potential area that could thus be acquired, even by compulsory means, would not exceed about fifty acres. If we compare this with the plan for, say, Manchester University, with its 4,500 students as against University College, Dublin's 4,770, with numbers growing in both institutions, we find that it is proposed to provide for Manchester University a site of 100 acres. Liverpool University, with 4,000 students, has had reserved for it a development area of 60 acres. It is true that both these Universities are to remain within their cities, but for the reason that alternative sites could not be found within less than fifteen and seven miles respectively from the city centres concerned.
The University of Birmingham, which plans for 5,000 students, has at present a site in the city centre and a site about three miles therefrom. It is at the moment actively planning to move the entire University to the suburban site of 400 acres. Nottingham University, which looks forward to having 4,000 students, is situated on the outskirts of the city, and has had its site there enlarged to 300 acres. The Technical University in Copenhagen, with 2,300 students, is, the Commission reports, planning to move from its present substantial buildings erected between 1932 and 1954 on a confined city site to a suburban site of 180 acres. Queen's University, Belfast, with 2,700 students, has sites totalling 87 acres.
Another suggestion that has been made is that the additional accommodation required might be found by the erection of high buildings on the Iveagh Gardens site. The Commission did not overlook this possibility, but the expert advice they received was to the effect that the Iveagh Gardens would be wholly inadequate for the gross floor area of 600,000 square feet, that is, roughly 13 acres, that is considered by the Commission to be the College's additional requirement, as against the Iveagh Gardens area of only 8.5 acres; (2) that high buildings obviously require a considerable area of open space around if they are to cater for large numbers of students; (3) that high buildings as well as being in this case out of character with existing buildings and the surrounding neighbourhood, are generally considered not suitable for the ordinary purposes of a University; (4) that between four and eleven stories the price of building tends to be uneconomic; and (5) that the cost of multifloor school buildings can be nearly twice that of buildings of the same capacity but of more orthodox height.
The Commission's final conclusion, after thorough investigation of all these matters, was:—
"The difficulty in the case of University College, Dublin has been to find for the College's accommodation problem a solution which will maintain the general physical unity of the College. We think that it is essential to maintain that unity. Without this unity and the opportunity of mingling together which it affords to students and professors of the different faculties, the College would lose what is one of the most valuable attributes of a University. It would in our opinion be no solution of the problem to build the College's additional accommodation requirements (450,000 square feet net)—(which is the equivalent of 600,000 square feet gross)—on the Stillorgan Road site and to leave the rest of the College at Earlsfort Terrace and Upper Merrion Street. This would divide the College, make it less than a university, and seriously affect the quality of the students.
Since there is not enough ground in the vicinity of Earlsfort Terrace for the additional buildings which the College needs for its requirements now and in the future, it seems to us that there is no other solution for the problem but to build a new College, and to build it as close to the centre of the city as a site can be got which will be big enough to prevent the recurrence of this problem in 25 to 50 years.
The 250 acre site which the authorities have already acquired at Stillorgan Road is such a site, and we have little doubt that it would not now be possible to find a site as suitable. The greatest commendation of the Stillorgan site is that it offers a final solution for the College's accommodation problem. The site is big enough to provide for every likely extension and development. It affords an opportunity of re-uniting with the general student body agricultural students of the 3rd, 4th and postgraduate years. There is room for the erection of halls of residences or hostels, and some residential accommodation is generally considered a desirable feature of university life."
I should perhaps add here that it has not been suggested, nor is it the intention of the Government, that halls of residence or hostels should be supplied by State aid.
The Government have studied the Report and the entire problem with great care and the conclusion they have reached is that, apart from the question of comparative cost, with which I shall deal in a moment, they could not agree to compulsory acquisition of the area concerned, for homes, habitations, hotels, hospitals, shops, commercial and industrial establishments and other educational institutions have their rights as well as universities, that in any case compulsory acquisition is no simple process, since in justice it must entail a tribunal of appeal, and therefore that it could not be implemented in any short period of time.
It would seem also that, taking everything into consideration, and in particular the unpredictable nature of the demands that may be made in the future by the necessity of further provision for the teaching of various branches of science, perhaps some as yet undiscovered, we must look at the problem with some vision.
There is one further very important point, the cost. It may be objected that the disturbance arising from compulsory acquisition would count for less than the cost of the transfer, but in fact it is very doubtful if this would be so. The cost of an outline scheme of compulsory acquisition of even part of the minimum area required for building might go something as follows:
|
(a) Acquisition of all properties between Canal and Hatch Street |
£700,000 |
|
(b) Demolitions and site re-development in respect of (a) |
£250,000 |
|
(c) Provision thereon of the additional accommodation required |
£5,000,030 |
|
(d) Replacing of College of Science accommodation |
£700,000 |
|
(e) Acquisition of properties on Harcourt Street and St. Stephen's Green, South |
£1,000,000 |
|
TOTAL |
£7,650,000 |
This estimate of nearly £8,000,000, which has been kept low in respect of the items that must remain a matter of conjecture, compares with an estimate of nearly £7,000,000 for the Belfield project. It would be impossible to say at this stage that the relative costs would work out precisely as here suggested, but it seems reasonable to conclude, at the very least, that the capital cost of a city development would be not less than that of the proposed suburban development and that, after all has been done and said, a city development would not give a final solution of the problem.
On the estimate of nearly £7,000,000 on the Belfield project, I should perhaps add that it is not, as would appear to be supposed by some, the intention of the Government to write out a cheque for £7,000,000 the morning after the Dáil should have agreed in principle to the proposal. There would be the question of site development, the question of architectural competitions for perhaps the lay-out generally and for the various blocks of buildings. I am authoritatively advised also that even if the work were in full swing, it is extremely doubtful if it would be physically possible to spend £500,000 a year in Dublin on any single building project. There must also be taken into account the no small matter of the requirements of the other Colleges which the Commission has reported are also pressing.
In all the circumstances, I cannot see how, despite the strong recommendation of the Commission, it would be physically possible to transfer the College entirely within, at the very least, twenty years. I should perhaps mention incidentally in this regard that I am informed that the expenditure concerned would have a fifty per cent. employment content for the building and ancillary trades of Dublin.
The intention of the Government if the Dáil passes the present Supplementary Estimate and thereby agrees in principle to the transfer to Belfield, is to relieve immediate pressure on University College by providing on the Belfield site, in such a way as to interfere as little as may be with potential alterations in the general lay-out, a building that will house the senior sections of the physics and chemistry departments. That is absolutely essential, for if such a building is not provided immediately, in the autumn of 1961 up to twenty honours graduates in science of that year will be unable, simply for lack of accommodation, to proceed with a postgraduate course, and that position will worsen in each succeeding year.
This eventuality would be a most serious matter in this technological age, and would be particularly undesirable in this country, for if there is a weakness in the structure of the work of our universities, it is that, by comparative standards, our number of higher degrees is low. Its greatest danger, however, would be to discourage brilliant students from entering the science faculty and so to discourage the teaching of science in the secondary schools. How this situation in postgraduate science has come about may be seen if we examine the number of entrants to the Faculty of Science in the College during the last six years. For many years the number of entrants remained static at about 80; in 1955-56 it jumped to 100, in 1956-57 to 124, in 1957-58 to 151, in 1958-59 to 194.
By what must in the circumstances be regarded as a fortunate happening, the number fell in the current year to 175, by reason of more entrants than usual electing for other faculties. If the rise had continued this year it is probable that it would not have been possible to cope with it. These increases were due to many causes which could not have been foreseen. A principal reason, however, was the increasing numbers taking science subjects in the secondary schools. There could be no question of discouraging this, but rather of encouraging it.
It might be suggested that the impasse in regard to the teaching of postgraduate science could be resolved by establishing, as a temporary measure, a system of shifts between the various groups of students. Apart, however, from the fact that some of the junior classes comprise approximately 300 students, it will upon consideration be realised that the work of postgraduate science students is not open to the expedient of shifts, for such students are dealing with experiments that do not permit of the moving of the apparatus concerned for perhaps months at a time.
In view, therefore, of what might fairly be called the desperate position of University College, Dublin, in regard to postgraduate teaching of science, the Government set up an interdepartmental committee to inquire into how the immediate problem might best be met. That committee, after full consultation with the College authorities concerned, came to the conclusion that it is necessary to provide immediately a building for senior science work, at an estimated cost of £250,000, and that temporary laboratory buildings for this special purpose at Earlsfort Terrace would later yield such a small salvage value for other purposes that their provision there could only be regarded as wasteful. The Government has accepted this view.
Of this sum of £250,000 the College agreed to find £100,000, and the first step towards finding the remainder is the present motion asking for a token amount for the purpose and the ratifying thereby by Dáil Éireann of the Government's agreement in principle, as already announced, to the transfer to the Belfield site. The College could then proceed immediately with the erection of the building.
I have devoted the greater part of my statement so far to University College, Dublin, as that College, being in the worst plight, is the subject of this Supplementary Estimate. It is not, however, to be taken thereby that the Government has lost sight of the Commission's recommendations for the Cork and Galway Colleges. Before going further with this point, however, I should like to say that many people, including, perhaps, sometimes members of the Colleges themselves, are inclined to think of each of the Colleges as an abstraction rather than as in essence a body of Irish students who must be properly provided for. In bringing forward this what might be called emergency measure for University College, Dublin, I am not thinking of what part of the country that College is located in, but that it serves more than half the total body of students from Ireland, including all our agricultural, mechanical engineering and chemical engineering and the very great proportion of our electrical engineering, veterinary and architectural students.
Once this rescue operation, as it might well be called, is taken for the Dublin College, there are a number of other problems which call urgently for consideration by the Government. First among these will be, as I have said, the accommodation problem in the other two Colleges upon which the Commission reported. Then there is the question of whether a University Development Committee, composed of persons with wide administrative, business and technical experience, as recommended by the Commission, should be set up, and of course there is, as already mentioned, the question of architectural competitions for the lay-out and for the various blocks of buildings that will be required. On these matters no decision has as yet been taken, but I hope to bring them formally before the Government shortly.
Before concluding, there are a number of other problems of our higher education on which I have something to say and on which the Government has taken a particular decision.
I have mentioned the matter of Vocational Committees providing professional courses parallel to those provided by the University Colleges. This is a development which for some years has been a cause of much concern to my Department, since, for one thing, it is the Minister's responsibility to see that there is no needless duplication of public expenditure.
Part of the trouble there is that there is a rung missing in our educational ladder inasmuch as there is no official channel for the talented and determined vocational education student to proceed via the National University to a degree in his own subject. I was glad to notice from a resolution I received recently from the trade union authorities that they too have taken cognisance of this problem. I may add that when, in accordance with the rules of O.E.E.C., of which we are a member, the provision for the teaching of science in our schools and Colleges was examined last year and when representatives of the Department and of other interested parties were summoned to Paris in November last for what is called "a confrontation" on the subject, one of the points underlined by the O.E.E.C. examiners was this gap in our system.
For my own part, without trying to pre-judge issues which I intend to submit to another tribunal, I think that, while it is rather the function of the vocational schools that may be concerned, to produce technicians, a matter in which, incidentally, we are weak, than to produce professional people, every child of sufficient talent, be he poor or rich, in any type of school should have the opportunity of climbing right to the top of the educational ladder. The nation needs the services of all the talent it can find.
That is not to say that I believe in the 11 plus or 12 plus or any other plus method of selection. The fundamental disadvantage of the plus systems at an early age is that they tend to crystallise schooling, and so society, at an early age into two classes, the professional and the strictly technical, with little or no hope of escape from the strictly technical class for the boy or girl who has once been segregated. I would think that any dividing line of the sort, if it must be, should not take place till the age of about 17 or 18, and that at that point there should be a channel for the really good and determined higher technical student from the vocational school to the University.
It was understood generally up to recently that this could not be done within the framework of the constitution of the National University, but I am glad to say that my Department has recently been informed by the authorities of University College, Dublin, that they believe that there need be no fundamental difficulty in waiving Latin, which is not a vocational school subject, and, if necessary, its alternative, a modern continental language, in the case of vocational school students who are of a proper standard otherwise and who desire to continue their studies towards a technological Degree.
If that were to come about, there is no barrier to vocational committees awarding scholarships to the university to suitably qualified students. Moreover, it is my intention, as recently indicated to the House, shortly to introduce a much more comprehensive scheme of scholarships to secondary schools, vocational schools and universities than the present one. In the circumstances I have mentioned, therefore, it would be possible for a vocational school student to enjoy such a university scholarship also.
There may be a case, also, of course, for vocational students to continue at professional level in higher technical schools, but, however that may be, I think that, apart from its being in the national interest to cultivate the best brains of the country, it is of fundamental importance socially that the student who may not have had the means to follow a secondary school course but who by ability and determination makes his or her way through a suitable course in a vocational school to the very lop level should have the possibility of enjoying the advantages of the intellectual and social climate of a University.
From the point of view of the Universities themselves I believe this to be extremely important. Anyone who looks at our university system in a broad way must be struck by a certain paradox that pertains to it. The paradox is that while, for instance, there has been a certain amount of opposition to the idea of transferring University College, Dublin, from the city to Belfield and while there are campaigns for University Colleges at new centres, the University Colleges are, on the whole, not so popular as they might be, if we are to judge by the somewhat exiguous assistance they receive locally. The new place and new importance of Universities in the nation's life has not caught the imagination of our people as it has elsewhere.
The main reason for this, in my opinion, is that, since our Colleges are almost entirely dependent on State grants, which in our circumstances must be relatively small, and on students' fees, they tend to appear as the preserve of the children of the well-off. The poorer citizens, who generally are the majority, are, therefore, inclined to take the view that the University is not for their children and so means nothing to them, except that they have to pay for it all. This view, is, of course, incorrect, for although the State contributes to University education, the parents contribute more, by way of fees, lodgings, books and so on, and the State benefits thereby from the parents' sacrifice. That argument is rather involved, however, for the man who would have no hope of sending his child to the University, but if it were generally understood that the child of even the poorest, if he is of sufficient ability, would have the opportunity of, as I have termed it, climbing right to the top of the educational ladder, that would be a tremendous uplift to the morale of the whole country.
Another problem which for a number of years has given my Department a certain amount of difficulty is the allocation from time to time to the four University Colleges of annual grants. When increased grants are being made, it has been the endeavour of the Department to try to arrive at as fair and just an apportioning as possible of the sum available. Many considerations arise in that regard. Up to the present the main basis of comparison between the needs of the several Colleges has been the most recent figures available of the total income of each College per student, but with due regard also to the minimum needs of each College in the matter of overheads, to any special responsibilities or commitments in a particular College and to the relative expenses of particular provision in any one or more of the Colleges. This method of comparing the needs of the Colleges is naturally very much an ad hoc one, and it is hardly fair to ask a Government Department to advise its Minister on a basis that must be at least to some extent arbitrary. I think the time is coming when in the effort to meet the growing demands some guiding principles of allocation would be useful.
A third pressing problem is the claims of some provincial centres for a University College. To that there is no facile answer one way or the other. Only a thorough examination of facts and figures in the context of the national economy, resources and needs would bring to light whether there is a real problem in this respect and, if so, how best it might be solved.
There are a number of other such problems which call for investigation, and accordingly I propose shortly to set up a Commission to survey the field of higher education and make recommendations on problems such as I have mentioned and other relevant matters. Let me hasten to add that the establishment of that Commission does not preclude rescue operations, as I have called them, in relation to the accommodation in any College pending the Commission's Report. Any such Commission of course would in its deliberations be subject to the principle laid down in Article 42 of the Constitution to which I have already referred.
One final word. Universities are of their nature very expensive institutions. A University student costs the State here more than three times the cost to it of a secondary school pupil, but in fact the income per student of Irish University Colleges is only one-third of that of similar British institutions. There is no use in pretending that we can ever emulate that level of financial support for our University Colleges—though of course we may expect to be called upon by them for a good deal more assistance than at present—but we have at least one great resource on which we can rely. We are blest in that God has endowed our race with a plenteous supply of brains.
If, standing firmly on our own feet, we use those brains properly we can hope to cooperate with all and hold our own with the best. But, as my colleague, the Minister for Industry and Commerce, pointed out recently, while this is true, it is true only so long as the other fellow has not adopted new techniques. For the training of our youth in those new techniques and for education in the humanities (including the sciences) that will balance and guide to good purpose the use of these, we look to our University staffs for the same devotion as in the past.
I have mentioned that the Universities have suddenly been flung into the forefront of national endeavour, and I should like to take this opportunity to pay a tribute to their staffs for the fine work they have been doing for a great many years in what must be conditions of great stress, often in classrooms and laboratories which in point of suitability were far below standard. From these they have given our young State its teachers, scientists, agriculturists, engineers, doctors, dentists, architects, economists and administrators, all of a quality comparable to that provided in other countries far ahead of us in wealth and resources. What is really extraordinary about all this—but not surprising if we recall that the Irish have a certain genius for improvisation and that adverse odds call out the best side of the Irish character—is that so far our graduates can hold their own in any part of the world. That this is so the keen and constant demand for them from overseas is the best evidence.
I started this with the mention of Newman, who was the apostle of knowledge as its own end. It is to be feared that during the course of the speech I have lapsed from that ideal and have placed all the stress on the technological aspect of higher education. That was because I was thinking mostly in terms of our national survival and progress. Let me end, however, by quoting from the Report of the Committee on Australian Universities. I do not apologise for borrowing the extract, as it seems to me to be of universal application. The quotation reads:
"It is the function of the university to offer not merely a technical or specialist training but a full and true education, befitting a free man and the citizen of a free country. This is becoming harder, too, and the demands of a modern technical training use up so much time and energy on the part of both teachers and students that the wider ard more fundamental aims of a fully rounded education may seem sometimes to have fallen into the background. But it is important to the interests of the country, and of humanity, that they should not do so. It has been becoming more and more clearly and widely recognised of recent years that the world simply cannot afford that its highly soecialised professional men, technologists and scientists should not also be fully educated as rounded human beings. It sometimes seems that while we have been advancing at a formidable speed in our knowledge of technical matters, we have if anything been falling behind in our understanding and appreciation of human values. We can handle machines and physical nature beyond the dreams of previous generations, but we handle ourselves, our families and our fellow human beings in general no better, and perhaps less well, than our fathers did before us. Many of the most serious problems in the world to-day are moral problems and are problems of human relationship. The need for the study of humanities is therefore greater and not less than in the past."
