It is not a bit simple, as I think the Minister and myself have demonstrated. This is the first Bill of its kind to come before the Oireachtas. It arises, as the Minister has pointed out, as a result of a Report of Visitors appointed by the Government to University College, Dublin. Perhaps the word "Visitor" may need explanation.
University College, Dublin, is a constituent College of the National University of Ireland, and it works under a Charter granted by King Edward VII in 1908, that is, more than 50 years ago. The theory and the practice under British law which we have inherited is that His Majesty the King, gives to certain of his subjects a charter to enable them to do a particular piece of work, in this particular case, educational work; and the King in granting a charter preserves to himself the right to visit the people who hold the charter at their request or otherwise and see how the work is going on. Visitations of this kind are generally and normally friendly and quite helpful, and they are frequently requested, in the case of Universities, by the Universities themselves.
Here since 1922 the Government exercise the powers of the Crown, and since the King is the Visitor to the National University and to all its constituent colleges, the Government are now in the place of the Crown under British law. A certain complaint called a Petition, since it went to the Crown concerning the construction of the Charter of University College, Dublin, was made to the Government. It was made by way of presenting a Petition. The Government appointed three Visitors. The Visitors reported and this Bill is based on the Report, as the Minister has said.
Apart from the Bill being based upon the report, a great deal of wild talk and a wild series of accusations have been raised against the Governing Body and against the President of University College, Dublin, and also, indeed, against the Senate of the University. It should be stated, particularly in view of what has been. stated very vigorously in the Dáil as against the Minister, that the Government did not consult the College before they appointed the Visitors, nor did they consult the College before this Bill was drafted.
Might I say, in passing, that Section 2 of the Bill, as explained, passes my comprehension, but I shall come to that later.
There was no collusion, therefore, between the Minister and the College or between the Government and the College or indeed between the College and anyone at all. The Bill is intended in all good faith by the Government to meet the situation which has arisen or which it is thought has arisen or is created by this Report. With the introduction of the Bill in the other House, the Report was made available and as far as I know, the publication of the Reports of Visitors to a University in this particular manner is without precedent. Therefore, the Bill is without precedent and so, it seems to me, is the publication of the Report.
I hope, Sir, the House will bear with me while I endeavour to explain the situation of the National University of Ireland and its constituent colleges. The National University of Ireland has three Constituent Colleges— Dublin, Cork and Galway—and a recognised College, which is not the same thing as a Constituent College, St. Patrick's College, Maynooth. It has a University Senate which meets at 49 Merrion Square which is called the Senate of the National University of Ireland, with a Chancellor to preside over it with certain other duties.
Each Constituent College has a Governing Body and a President and each Constituent College also has an Academic Council composed of all the Professors and some University Lecturers. All these bodies are interwoven and interlocked in a very interesting manner by Charters and Statutes, and by what used to be called, in the case of the Commonwealth, practice and constitutional usage. All the four colleges were in existence before the University. Maynooth College was of course the oldest of them and the University was devised in 1908 with very great skill to link these Colleges together. The precise way in which they are in fact related is not easy to understand for any person who has not worked the system.
One of the commonest pieces of confusion is calling University College Dublin "the National University". One gets letters from graduates calling it the National University and at sports one often hears "Come on, National" when what they mean is "Come on, University College". Perhaps "National University" is an easier phrase than the other. However, the system is not easy to understand. Last week, for example, I conducted oral examinations at St. Patrick's College. I have also, as a Professor at University College, functions and powers with regard to written examinations in Maynooth. But it would not be easy to explain, and I should not like to undertake it here and now in clear terms, the position of Maynooth College in the University and the precise legal relationship of the Professors of University College, Dublin, with Maynooth, but for a period of 50 years, the arrangement has worked smoothly and efficiently and with excellent personal relationships.
One of the greatest misconceptions, and I think it is to be found in the Visitor's Report, is that the Senate of the National University of Ireland— perhaps the Minister shares this view —is a superior authority and that the Governing Bodies are inferior. The Senate is a link between the Colleges and not an authority over them. The Colleges have their own powers carefully preserved and the Senate does not interfere with these powers. The ordinary business of the Senate is transacted by a Vice-Chancellor. This is not a separate University officer called Vice-Chancellor and existing for the particular purpose of being the Vice-Chancellor. He is appointed for two years and the office goes around amongst the Presidents of the three Colleges, so that at intervals each President is a Vice-Chancellor. The Vice-Chancellor is enabled to transact certain University business which arises for decision between the meetings of the Senate.
It seems to me that the Report of the Visitors discloses that the Visitors did not fully grasp these various interlocking processes and functions. They chose to base their findings almost entirely on documents and in this case, as in many others, a person from the outside coming to consider the documents would get an imperfect and very often an erroneous picture of the work and in fact anybody approaching the problems of National University and the Constituent Colleges would have in the first place to learn a great deal and then would be constrained to interpret the documents in the light of facts, needs and established practices.
Before I come to consider the Report and the Bill, may I say that this whole matter arises from the existence, as I think it is clear to Senators now, within University College, Dublin, of a small group of persons opposed to the Governing Body of the College and particularly and personally to the President of the College That group endeavoured within the College to convince their academic colleagues that they were right. They failed to present a convincing case either to any Faculty or to the Academic Council or to the Governing Body. The Report of the Visitors discloses in a rather curious way—which I shall come to later on—that they also failed to carry any conviction to the Senate of the National University of Ireland. Their failure at the Senate is set down on page 9 of this Report. Having failed with these bodies, they then resorted to another device. They proceeded to apply a legal magnifying glass to the Charters and Statutes, not because they were anxious that these 50-years old documents should be rigidly observed but because they desired to thwart and hamper the authorities of University College, Dublin, in the very difficult work in which they were engaged.
The visitation was set up to deal with one such point raised by Mr. John Kenny, senior counsel, and also an assistant in the Law Faculty of University College, Dublin. A Report has been furnished and the Report has been made public. Since this Bill is based upon the Report, as the Minister has indicated, I feel that I am entitled, speaking entirely for myself as a public representative and as a member of this House, to give my views on the Report. I have had experience of the University for more than 50 years. I went into University College, Dublin, as a student in 1906, before I was 17 years of age, and I went on to the staff of University College, Dublin, in January, 1912. I have appeared before the Visitors and I have given great consideration to the terms of their Report.
I have come to the conclusion that the Report is unsatisfactory from every angle. It is particularly unsatisfactory, as I think the Minister has demonstrated, because it is not clear and it is not helpful to the Government. The Report is not well constructed. It is discursive, irrelevant and wholly devoid, it would seem to me, of the kind of keen analytical clarity which should and frequently does characterise a legal finding,
The Report is very expansive on certain points. There are elaborate quotations about certain things but it is strangely, and indeed inexplicably reticent on certain other points. It seems to resort in certain places to the old device of suggesting what is false and suppressing what is true. That, I think I should be able to demonstrate, is particularly the case when the Report deals with the President of University College, Dublin and his functions. The Report contains not one syllable of legal argument in support of its findings.
It consisted of three judges. But of course it is not necessary that any visitation of this kind should consist of judges exclusively or indeed that it should consist of judges at all. In this instance, it might have shortened the proceedings and very much improved them if some person conversant with University administration and the workings of the University generally had been a member of the board, but that was not so.
The main point put to the board was a point of interpretation of a document. One would expect when three judges came to give their finding on a point of interpretation, they would comment on the reasoning which, from the legal point of view, enabled them to come to their conclusions, but the Report does not give one syllable of legal argument in support of its finding. It complains that no legal opinion was obtained by University College, Dublin, on a certain matter, but almost completely ignores the legal view put before it on behalf of the College, both orally and in writing.
At the Visitation, legal argument was advanced by counsel appearing for the college, but the arguments, I gather, received rather scant attention at the hearings and are neither cited nor answered in the Report.
I want to contrast the Report with another report of a Board of Visitors to the National University which was made in August of last year and the contrast is a very striking one indeed. In this case, the powers of a chartered body were at issue. The question as to whether things done in good faith by a chartered body, by the holders of a charter to further the objects of a charter can be ultra vires is an unusual one; in other words, whether people who hold a charter and in good faith carry out its objectives can act, as a company or a county council can, outside their powers. There are people who say it is settled law that they cannot. It is a particular aspect of the law rarely considered in this country.
For that reason and to assist the Visitors, a submission on purely legal grounds was made in writing by counsel for the College. The Report fails to acknowledge that submission. The report of evidence received by the Visitors failed to mention the legal submission given to them by counsel for the College, nor has the submission been answered in any part of the Report, either explicitly or by implication. It would have been interesting in 1960, 50 years after the granting of the Charter, with 50 years' experience of the working of the Charter, with three Colleges and a University, to hear the views of three judges on this unusual point of law. In fact, they failed to give any views at all on the law. The College case was that what the College did was authorised and lawful. That case has not been answered in this Report and it has not been answered because in fact there is no answer and I put that to the House. There has been no breach of the law, technically or otherwise, and no failure to carry out the law.
When a chartered body in good faith and for the furtherance of the objects of the charter does anything, it does not act ultra vires and no question of validation or indemnity arises. A chartered body is not in the same position as a company or a county council. Dublin Corporation have just completed a very pleasant public park opposite my house. If having got a grant, instead of building a park at Templeogue, they had built a racecourse at Finglas, certainly they would be acting illegally and exceeding their powers because a corporation works under an Act of Parliament, not a charter. But University College, Dublin, was not acting illegally. Words have been bandied about by people who always thought them and who find in this document, largely due to their imagination, an opportunity of saying things which are not true. The word ‘illegal’ does not occur in the Report. There is no statement in the Report that implies that they acted illegally and the charge of illegality is untrue.
The position about the Charter is that if the Crown which granted the Charter finds that something has been done not in accordance with the Charter, then the Crown—which in this case of course is the Government —can withdraw the Charter altogether or give instructions that a practice thought not to be in accordance with the Charter should be stopped. If the Minister says to University College: "I think I find you have no power to name people College Lecturers and you will have to stop", then University College will have to stop.
But may I refer to a point about Section 2? Section 2 appears to give the College power, in spite of any existing Charter, to continue what it has been doing. That is surely the intention of the Bill. If it were its intention to do something else, then that something else should surely be put into it. However, I shall come to that later on.
The practices in the College were not illegal and the Report carefully refrains from saying that they were. Illegality is a gloss put upon the Report by eager slanderers of the President and the Governing Body and it is only fair to the slanderers to say that the Report is so drafted as to give them some grounds for the case they are so vociferous in making.
This is not the first Report of Visitors on a University matter in this country. In August, 1959, a report was made to the National University of Ireland by three Visitors, Mr. Justice Cearbhall Ó Dálaigh, Mr. Justice Kevin Dixon and Judge Michael Binchy. Mr. Justice Dixon was subsequently appointed to conduct the Visitation to University College, Dublin, but unfortunately owing to his unexpected death, Mr. Justice Murnaghan was appointed in his place.
I should like to analyse the present Report and compare it with the Report of the other Board of Visitors under Mr. Justice Ó Dálaigh. I shall call each report by the name of the chairman. The Murnaghan Report does not contain a copy of the Petition submitted. It contains a sentence from Mr. Kenny's Petition but does not give his statement before the Visitors that if the words "College Lecturer" were dropped he, Mr. Kenny, would be content. The Ó Dálaigh Report gives the petition it was considering in extenso.
