First let me say that, to give extended time to a colleague, I propose to limit myself to 20 minutes and I propose to deal with only two themes. Before doing that let me, as they say, declare interest because from my own experience of all my adult life being involved in teaching of one kind or another, of being a consultant in adult education to RTE, as well as being a university teacher, I have been involved in third level matters for a quarter of a century as a veterinary graduate.
Secondly, in the different institutions at third level, people traditionally, not just now, but for decades and longer, have taken dug-in sandbag positions and there is no way to produce a scheme for third level reform which will meet with the approval of everybody. Indeed, the more involved people are with their own office, their own tradition, and their own routine, the more difficult it is for them to accept necessary change. That brings me to the point that we simply cannot leave third level unreformed. It is not that you have something reasonably good which you want to make better.
My contention, after a quarter of a century of experience is that our third level is simply not meeting the requirements of the country and is in desperate need of reform and of profound reform. I would say, particularly having just listened to Deputy Faulkner, that it is horribly easy in this context to release bitterness, to release animosity, to release hostility. When you are dealing with many institutions and many articulate people that makes any sort of progress or concensus almost impossible. The bitter word is easy in this context but it is non-productive.
I want to discuss the question of a unified system or a binary system and what that means, not just in Dublin, but in general and then the question of whether it is better for the institutions in Limerick and Galway and Cork to be part of a single university or to be separate universities. I will try to stick to time on those two things. I thought Deputy Faulkner's answer, when challenged on binary or unified, was a hedging answer, that he did not want to face it, because he mentioned the respected late member of the House, Deputy Donagh O'Malley, who was a reforming Minister for Education. It seems to me that the reforms at second level we have had make a unified system at third level absolutely obligatory.
I take the reforms that have been proposed—and I am not making a political point at all—by the Government not at all to be in conflict with the second level policy of a previous Government, but to be the necessary corollary to that policy which I uphold as a good policy. The basic thing we are facing is that, while there has been a growth in knowledge of law, a growth in knowledge of philosophy, a growth in knowledge of my own science, a growth in all university disciplines, in the area loosely called technology there has been an explosion, an explosion which has transformed the whole world. Our institutions are not changing as fast as that knowledge.
The second thing to say about technology is that it was originally done by people in overalls with oil on their hands, by artisans, by people who were not quite respectable in terms of university attitudes and of the snobberies of the past. While the knowledge represented by the word "technology" has exploded, the institutions and the place in society, the status, incomes and buildings and the staff-student ratios of those persons who are responsible for technology in our society have not changed correspondingly with the validity and social importance of the knowledge that is represented by the word technology. That is a failure of our society. It is a failure for which we in Ireland, trying to develop our economy rapidly, paid very dearly. There are profound economic arguments, practical day-to-day pragmatic arguments for technology taking its proper place in our society. But, they are only half the case. The other half of the case is that there is nothing that is not respectable, that would not be a suitable son-in-law for the most aggressive mother-in-law in this concept of technology. It has to be a central part of our world—at the very highest level of our academic institutions because it represents valid knowledge about the world that we need for our intellectual development as well as our economic development.
When C. P. Snow was talking about two cultures, he was talking about this separation into the technologists and the people who esteemed themselves to be a purer breed who were entitled to slightly better rules and slightly larger pay. But, the division into two cultures is not just bad for society and technology; it is bad for the universities too. The thing that distresses me is that this is a profoundly radical and inspiring perspective of not putting technology into the universities but of abolishing the distinction between technology and other skills that people have.
Why should what is called technology be in some way inferior to law or to medicine or to philosophy or whatever you like? It is a central part of our society in this century and it has to have its proper place, not taken into universities on sufferance, but taking its proper, total place in the university as valid as any other discipline and making its contribution on the basis of absolute equality.
When we are having discussions about unified or binary, it is not a matter of bringing in technology under anybody's wing or having the technologists and what they represent as second class people in universities or squelching them in universities or using universities to take their budgets and manipulate them. It is offering them the perspective of their place in the third level sun which their expertise and their social role and social obligations entitle them to. That seems to me a perspective of a very fundamental and dramatic kind, and I find it hard to see how any person of goodwill can object to that perspective.
It is not the question of changing the place of technology in a structure. It is a question of abolishing the distinction between what is called technology and all the other subjects. You do not have that sort of distinction between medicine and law at university. Why should you have it between law and technology or between medicine and technology? Why should the pay be lower? Why should the staff-student ratio be worse? Why should the research content be worse? Why should the buildings be worse? Morally, intellectually and economically for this society, it is imperative that that distinction be not tampered with or adjusted. What is essential is that it be abolished. I am depressed that people cannot see the perspective that is offered in those terms. We need it for democracy. We need it for equality. We need it for abolishing the disgusting sort of class distinctions that have attached to different social roles in the past. The Labour Party has a particular concern in abolishing those distinctions but I am sure that all parties and all middle members in the House would wish to abolish them.
Let us then, in that context, talk about Ballymun. What do I wish for Ballymun? I wish it to be a college of a university, with the same pay, same buildings, same staff-student ratios, same technicians, same budget for equipment, same playing fields, same society for students mixing with other students on a basis of equality, not any sort of second class institution. The bits that will make it a second class institution are second class institutions now and have been for a long time carried on the backs of people who are making a contribution beyond the call of duty, either voluntarily with their free time or teaching in dreadful conditions and for pay that was not as good as academic pay. We must stop calling for that sort of dedication and commitment without commensurate rewards.
I want to see it as a college of a university, not second class—identical: a college like any other college doing its particular things and doing them with total stature, total equality and with exactly the same facilities as anybody else. That is the perspective that is offered if not instantly—because, as Deputy Faulkner has said this role is a new role—then as soon as possible. Let us have structures that do not hold up that evolution into its full place in the sun for our technological sectors. As to which of the present universities it should be a college of, as I have associations with TCD I would have a particular view but I would not try to determine that.
It seems to me we can never complete the reforms or have our second level reforms flower at third level unless we are prepared to abolish the binary system. It is no use abolishing it by saying: "You are technological, you will go into the university but you will never be quite the same." Abolition means abolition: it means equality. Abolition means that the perspective of that sector with its exploding knowledge about nature, with exploding control over technological things for all our well being will have the place in society that their knowledge entitles them to. Their knowledge is valued in our culture commensurate with its worth in our culture. That is what it means. It does not mean anything less. That is both a radical and noble aspiration and I am shocked that people should reject that principle and that those who have carried this thing on their backs for so long, either the voluntary people on the committee, or the staff, do not see that perspective. Perhaps it is more than they ever thought they would get. Perhaps they are not grasping it because they do not see the perspective as fully offered. It is the perspective of their rightful place in society and nothing less. Perhaps it is because it is so radical it is not being grasped.
I have about five minutes of my own time and I want to talk about Cork. Galway and Limerick. What do I want for those three, two of them colleges and one of them an institute for higher education? I will make a list in a moment that everybody on the opposite side of the House would agree with and that the staff in those places would agree with. But, what do we want? Let us try and get that list and then let us ask the questions. If we really have arguments about things and are not sniping at each other, then let us ask the question: "How is that best attained?" I want excellence for them and I know everybody else does and that they want it themselves. I want security for them, for their future. Security is hardly related to excellence but they are out on the western edge of Europe and the centripetal forces in the economy are working. They have to be given security. It is terribly important that universities should have local involvement. We use the phrase town and gown as meaning something obvious. What does it mean?
