Co-ordination of University Facilities in Dublin: Motion (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:

That Seanad Éireann is of the opinion that discussions be initiated with a view to securing the coordination of university facilities in Dublin.

—(Senator Garret FitzGerald.)

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

I hope to be able to finish my speech this evening. I still have one or two things to say, although I was speaking when the motion was adjourned on the previous occasion. The point upon which I was touching on the last occasion was the question whether Trinity College would be well advised, or has been well advised, to try overmuch to reduce the student intake from outside Ireland. I notice on page 449 of the Second Report of the Commission on Higher Education, in Table 94, there are elaborately set out the percentages of students in Trinity coming from Ireland, from Great Britain and from elsewhere. There are two points I would stress and one is that pre-war, 1938-39, the proportion of students in Trinity coming from Ireland was 90 per cent, the remaining ten per cent being made up of six per cent from Great Britain and four per cent from elsewhere. Due to two factors, mainly, the percentage coming from outside Ireland increased down the years. Of these two factors, one was the increasing severity of the application of the ecclesiastical ban, and the other the post-war demand, in Britain in particular, and in other countries also, for university education.

The figure for 1966-67 would appear to me to be entirely defensible. It is that 68 per cent of the students in Trinity College came from Ireland— their home residence was in Ireland— 25 per cent came from Great Britain and seven per cent from elsewhere. It is mentioned in a footnote to the Report that students from outside Ireland are charged 50 per cent more in fees than students from Ireland. That is a fairly big surcharge. It is not always well known to the public that students in Trinity College or National University from outside Ireland in fact pay 50 per cent more than home students.

I want to make the point also that not only do these students bring in money in the shape of fees to the universities and consequently to the country, but they also stay here for four years and have their ordinary living expenditure too. According to the Report, it is unlikely that the cost to the student, including maintenance, would be less than £300 a year, or £400, or even more. I think I am right in saying that the average time spent in Ireland by the average tourist is something like ten days. We spend a good deal of money advertising our tourist attractions in order to bring these tourists in, so that they may spend a certain amount of money here and come in large numbers. I would suggest that there is, as it were, a concealed asset or a concealed income, if you like, being derived from students from abroad spending not an average of ten days here but four full years, and living and having their being in this country. This seems to me to be at least a subsidiary reason why we should be particularly glad to have them.

On page 452 of the Report, it is stated:

Our institutions of higher education are seriously short of financial resources; it is unrealistic that some of the available resources should be utilised for the benefit of students from outside the country, particularly students from wealthier countries.

I should like to challenge that point of view. I do not think it is unrealistic that we in Ireland should be prepared to spend some money on the education of those who come to us from outside, because there are for us a great number of imponderable values residing in those people who come to Ireland for their higher education.

The last sentence in the last paragraph on page 452 is regrettable. It states:

It may also be asked whether the presence of so many British students does not render the realisation of the College's wish to be accepted as an Irish university unnecessarily difficult.

I would challenge the view contained in that sentence that in some way the fact that 20 to 25 per cent of the students in Trinity may be from Britain in some way renders it more difficult for Trinity to be Irish. After all, we are living in a time when the Government themselves proudly announce a Free Trade Area Agreement with Britain, a drawing closer and closer together with Britain, and when it is recognised that our major trade, both import and export, is with Britain. It seems at this juncture faintly absurd to call it "unrealistic" for us to welcome into an Irish university numbers from Britain to the extent of 20 to 25 per cent.

I am glad to remind the House, moreover, that we in Trinity claim, and claim rightly, that many of the students who come to us and who are listed as British simply because their residence is British may be descendants of Irish people, the children of Irish parents. Many of them are just as Irish as George Bernard Shaw, or James Joyce or Seán O'Casey, or even Éamon de Valera for that matter. The mere fact of parents residing abroad does not by any means signify that the people in question are not Irish.

I say again that I and many more in Trinity feel proud, possibly naïvely proud, that quite a lot of people from outside think it worthwhile to come to Trinity for their higher education. Whether we merit such choice is not for me to say, but we can surely feel a certain legitimate pride in this fact; and there is no question but that the advent of a due proportion of students from outside the country is a good thing for the university itself and for the country. We gain by it, and we hope they do. We know we do.

I ask the House to consider what would happen if the British Government or the British local authorities suddenly were to decide that the many university students in Britain who are Irish or of Irish descent, and who are grant-aided, should be sent back to Ireland for their university education. We should find it difficult to cope with the large numbers; and we should therefore realise that a degree of reciprocity is a just thing, and something from which we gain. For that reason I welcome a sentence in paragraph 16.42 on page 450 where the Report states:

We acknowledge that a university is all the better for an admixture of foreign students and we would not wish to depart from a tradition that is as old as the universities themselves.

That seems to me to be much more in the correct spirit of civilisation, of culture and of university education than the sentence I quoted earlier about it being "unrealistic" to have foreign students coming into Irish universities.

I shall turn now to the question of access to the universities and this is an extremely important matter, involving our whole attitude towards university education. It is quite clear that when we are thinking about the universities of the future here we have to make some kind of guess as to what the numbers will be. On page 173 of the Report Investment in Education, there is a sentence about the university stage of education. It states that “by this stage the disparity between the social groups has become most marked and the strong association between university entrants and social group is unmistakable”. Chart 6.7 on page 172 of the report shows that only somewhat less than five per cent of all university entrants in Ireland have working-class backgrounds. This is a point to which attention must be paid —that access to the universities is not sufficiently widely open or widely based, and frequently the barrier is one of finance, of class, rather than of merit. This is something that must be broken down in the universities of the future.

It is clearly recognised by the Report in an admirable paragraph, paragraph 3.26 on page 107, which I quote:

Higher education is not at present accessible to the community at large. The system is not as in some other countries a free system generally or a system in which considerable assistance is available to those who are qualified to benefit from it.

I skip a sentence and I come to this:

The fees which the university colleges charge are not economic fees since they cover less than two-fifths of the operating costs but they are not unsubstantial, particularly in the professional faculties. The maintenance and incidental costs during term (i.e., about 30 weeks of the year) may be three to five times as much as the fees and, in all, the minimum financial commitment of the individual student may be of the order of £300-£400 a year.

The Report in the same paragraph, goes on to recognise a very vital point: "the full financial commitment falls on the student himself or his parents or guardians in five out of six cases and the factor of the loss of potential earnings must be taken into account." That I regard as most important. The young man and woman hoping to go to the university, and whose parents would like them to do so, generally may not be able to afford the loss of potential earnings. I find highly satisfactory the fact that the Report draws close attention to this and I am confident that the Minister in particular, and I hope the Government in general, are concerned about this aspect of access to the university, particularly in view of the recognition by the Report, in paragraph 4.2 at page 113, of the obviously increasing demand in the future for university education:

A projection indicated that the numbers in our institutions of higher education would rise from 16,300 full-time students in 1964-65 to a figure of the order of 26000 in 1975, of whom about 23,000 would be university students.

This being so, the increasing demand being anticipated, together with the fact that this increased demand may be even greater than estimated if university education is made accessible not only to those who merit it economically and from the point of view of character, but also to those who, while meriting it cannot afford to pay for it, may well mean there will be as many as 30,000 or 40,000 students in the late 1970s.

There is another feature linked with this to which I should like to refer. It is the increasing proportion of women students in the universities. Personally, I regard this with great satisfaction, and I cannot help recalling that my father, who was the first lay Registrar of UCD, was dismissed from his post as Registrar because he entertained the wildly revolutionary idea that university education should be open to women! That was in 1903 or 1904. I am pleased to note that now, for instance, the figures given in Investment in Education for 1964-65 show that the proportion of women students in UCD was 29 per cent, in UCC, 30 per cent, in UCG, 32 per cent and, I am proud to say, in TCD, 35 per cent. In this field we are leading and that is a good thing. Nobody will deny that the admission of women to the universities, and to graduate status, has been of immense benefit not only to the women so privileged but to the universities at large. I compare this with the figure also given in the Investment in Education Report, in case we should get too proud of those figures: I note that, in Finland, for instance, the percentage is 47: it is almost equally divided.

I notice another figure which is given to us on page 76 of the Report of the Commission on Higher Education, a figure for the ratio of university students to the population. I am glad to see that Ireland comes very high in this regard. I would like to see it coming even higher, but the figure is something of which we need not be ashamed. In 1965-66, Ireland had one student to 201 of the population. I have a feeling that that figure may be somewhat affected by the fact that a fairly large proportion of our adult population is exported, and therefore does not remain to be compared with the university student population. Nevertheless, as I said, the figure for the Republic of Ireland is 1 to 201 of the population.

In Northern Ireland, the figure is not as good: it is 1 to 326. In Great Britain, it is less good; it is 1 to 407. It is possible there that some of the technical schools are not counted as being of university status, but the fact is that the figure there looks nearly twice as bad as the figure in Ireland, the Irish figure being 1 to 201. The Swedish figure is 1 to 147 and the Finnish figure 1 to 139. I think those figures are ones which it would not do to stress overmuch, but I think they ought to be mentioned because the ratio gives a rule of thumb way of measuring our progress comparatively.

It is worth noticing, too, on page 85, that in the latest year for which they give figures in this regard, the percentage of university students in UCD has gone up and up. There is a table given in the middle of that page and there is a comparison between the years 1948-49 and 1964-65. The proportion represented by UCD students of all Irish university students was 42 per cent in the first year, 1948-49, and 47 per cent in 1964-65. In other words, almost half of the university students in the Republic of Ireland were by 1964-65 in UCD. That is a rather frightening figure.

The figures for the other colleges are also interesting. For the first year mentioned, University College, Cork, had 14 per cent of the total and by 1964-65 that had risen to 17 per cent. University College, Galway, in 1948-49, had 11 per cent, and that had risen in 1964-65 to 14 per cent. The only one which had dropped was Trinity College. In 1948-49 the figure there was 33 per cent, whereas in 1964-65 the figure was only 22 per cent.

It could be argued that there are a variety of factors contributing to that, but I think it should be taken in the context of what tests are being put to the students in order that they may get a university education. What are the barriers and what are the hurdles? Those are obviously of two kinds, (1) intellectual and (2) financial. It is fair to say that the intellectual test is not a very hard one. It is a minor test. The financial test is considerable, as I have shown, and as is recognised by the Report, because it represents not only the cost to the student and the family but also the loss in potential earnings. The Report mentions on page 116, paragraph 4.10:

In Britain, there has been an increase in entry standards, which must have had the effect of reducing the potential demands, but the number of places in institutions of higher education has also been increased.

I think we should very seriously consider while deciding, as I hope we shall decide, as I hope the Government will decide, to lower the financial barriers for students and make it easier from the financial point of view for those who could obviously benefit from a university education to get in, that we would at the same time do what they have done in Britain. That is that we should raise the standard of the intellectual test and make it, from an intellectual point of view, just a little bit more difficult to get into the university. For a long time, I think I am right in saying, in the National University, it was sufficient to get one honour in the Leaving Certificate in order to gain entry into that university. It has long been necessary in Trinity to get two honours. That is now the case in the National University, but I think it would be well worthwhile considering whether this is not still too low and whether it might not be a wise thing to make entrants to either university obtain at least three, or possibly four, honours in the Leaving Certificate.

The Leaving Certificate is far from being an ideal examination. In many ways it has been unsatisfactory. It has recently been changed, and it is in the process of being further changed, but as a test it would seem to me legitimate that all students entering the university should have obtained at least three or four honours in the Leaving Certificate or their equivalent.

I would like to draw attention again to figures which were given to us by Senator Brosnahan on the last occasion we were debating this motion. I do not think enough attention was paid to those figures. They related to last autumn, and to the qualifications of the 173 students then accepted in St. Patrick's Training College. Those are young people who want to become primary school teachers. To me, the figures are quite startling. I refer to column 341 of our debate of 7th December, 1967, Volume 64, No. 5. Of those 173 students, 149 had four or more honours in the Leaving Certificate. Four or more! Of the 173, 149 had four or more honours. A great number of university entrants would not have more than two or three honours. It would not necessarily mean they had not other intellectual advantages, but measuring them by the same yardstick one would say that these 149 at any rate were more worthy of university entrance than many of those who got university entrance because although they had more honours at leaving certificate, they could not afford to pay. Of the 173, 149 had four or more honours, and none of the 173 had less than three honours, though they could get into the university with two. Six of these people had nine honours in the leaving certificate. This makes it glaringly obvious that our present method of selection is a grossly unfair one for many sections of the community; and this is an argument also, I would suggest, to show that we would not be committing a major injustice if we were to raise the intellectual standard required by demanding as a very minimum three or four— preferably four I would say—honours at leaving certificate for university entrance.

The report further recognises that necessary university expansion will have to take place. The question is gone into on page 119. I do not want to quote at length but the whole question of the future requirements of the country is gone into at paragraph 4.17. The case is made, and I feel it would be conceded by all here, that there is a major demand and necessity for expansion at the university level. I would suggest then that as far as Trinity College, which I have the honour to represent here in the Seanad, goes, there is a wide basic demand for access to it. I would like to stress the fact that I believe that the demand for access to Trinity College is for access to the Trinity College as we have known it, as I have known it. I should like to say something about that. There is sometimes a measure of ignorance about Trinity College, perhaps a measure of prejudice against it and I would like to say something, if I might be permitted to do so, of what Trinity College has meant to me.

I entered Trinity College in 1927. It seems a long time ago. My mother used occasionally be challenged jokingly by republican friends as to why she had sent her son to Trinity College, and her reply was always the same. She said simply: "Because I knew the National." She said nothing, I am afraid, in praise of Trinity. This was her reply. She had not got very great confidence in the rival institution at that time. I went into Trinity with a junior exhibition. I was enabled while there to get a scholarship, and by Trinity College I was given an intellectual chance. In fact the College, by scholarships and grants, paid for me and many others coming in in my financial situation. The College paid for us to get the privilege of a university education. For my amusement many years ago I added up what I had paid in and what I had been paid and found that I was the gainer over the four years. It might be recognised too that Trinity College was not getting any Government grant until 1947. It did not ask for one until 1947, and when it did ask they got what they asked for, very generously given. The fact is that in 1927, 20 years before, there was no Government grant. It was important to me and to many others that we get this chance, and more important was the intellectual chance that it gave us. What it gave us above all, and I think all Trinity graduates will agree with me on this, was access to an atmosphere where free minds were free to express themselves, had free access to a wide variety of ideas, and where there was open discussion on virtually every topic under the sun.

It is quite true that the Trinity College I went into in 1927, five years after the Treaty which set up the Free State, had a strong element of Unionism about it. It was quite clear and this was one of the points of view put in all student discussions, formal and informal, at the time; but all views were welcomed, all views were discussed, all views could be expressed. I think of people in my day like Peadar O'Flaherty. I think earlier of Douglas ffrench-Mullen. I think of Seán Beaumont, Bob Clements, R.M. Gwynn, Denis Goold-Verschoyle, none of whom could be said to have either the political or the religious ethos of many holding totally different views about the Trinity of those days. I would say by way of parenthesis that this deliberate encouragement of the clash of ideas, and the insistence that the liberal intellectual thread was there just as strongly as the Tory one, can be traced right back in the fabric of Trinity College. The Liberal or even Republican thread has been there right down the ages, always much stronger, of course, among the student body than among the staff, but this is always true of every university everywhere. I do not think that would be denied in the Ireland of today.

People may say that Wolfe Tone, for instance, was hardly a representative member of Trinity College, because he took a view totally at variance with the orthodox view of the authorities; but let us not forget that Wolfe Tone was the Auditor of the senior student Debating Society, Auditor of the College Historical Society, and was elected by a majority of the student members and represented therefore a strong section of student opinion at the time, and that in fact his auditorial address was on the subject of Irish nationalism. One should not think therefore of Wolfe Tone as being a kind of outcast in Trinity College. From the student point of view he was a representative figure. Not only that, but the society he represented when they fell foul of the authorities, as they did occasionally, was not afraid to go outside the walls and hold its meetings outside the walls until the Board of Trinity College was forced to come to heel. In our own time or almost in our own time the Gaelic Society of Trinity College also held its meeting outside when the Provost, Dr. Mahaffy, banned the admisson of "a man called Pearse" to the meeting.

Professor Stanford

On a point of fact he was not Provost; he was Vice-Provost.

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

Vice-Provost, later to be promoted Provost, banned the coming into this meeting— I could not be sure about the year, it was pre-war, about 1914,—of the "man called Pearse".

Professor Stanford

On a point of fact it was not pre-war, it was just at the outset of the war. Pearse was kept out on account of his anti-recruiting activities, regrettably as we have come to see since then.

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

The point I am making is that the student body refused to lie down, to knuckle under, and they challenged the whole authority of the Vice-Provost and the Board at the time; and the public reaction was so strong and the student support was so strong that the liberal point of view could not be quelled. It is true that a man like Mahaffy did behave in this foolish way, but of course other men in Irish history have behaved foolishly, without the whole institution which they might be taken to represent being condemned on that account. After all, it was a bishop who referred to "cut-throat Tone" and another bishop who remarked that hell was not hot enough nor eternity long enough to punish the Fenians. This, however, would not be regarded as being necessarily representative of the hierarchy as a whole.

It might well be said, and I think legitimately, that nevertheless in Trinity College there were some diehards still remaining.

One of the points of difference which I had with the official manner in those days was the toast to the King; and from the time when I was junior freshman there. I sat down for the toast to the King. At the College Historical Society, the rugger dinner—it was physically more risky to do so there— and at the cricket dinner, I sat down for the toast to the King, because I believed that type of toast was out of place in the Ireland of 1927. I remember very clearly—this is why I refer to it—that when I was a senior freshman, a second year student, having done this at the cricket dinner in Trinity Week, being approached by a very senior member of the College, who asked me if I had been "very bored" the evening before, referring to this incident. I said no, that it had been a very good dinner, and he then said that he was referring to my sitting down for the toast to the King, and he proceeded to argue with me. He was a very senior member of the College, and I was a second year student, a senior freshman. What remained in my mind was the fact that he was willing and prepared and interested enough to argue the case, and put the opposite case before me, and allow me to argue back. This seems to me to represent an ethos which is worth preserving. The issue is a dead one now, but there are many other issues which are alive and for which it is worthwhile reserving a place where one can talk freely and without fear of victimisation. I think this is something that is being increasingly appreciated in the Ireland of today.

It may be said it is a queer thing that in 1927 the toast to the King should still prevail in an Irish university. I agree, and I had the honour to be the proposer of the motion to drop it in the College Historical Society in the session 1930-1, when it was decided to drop it by a large majority vote at two successive meetings. But I would remind anyone who might have this feeling about the toast to the King that, after all, the entire Irish Government was at that time swearing an oath of allegiance to the British Crown. I do not know whether any of the Government sat down. This was 1927, and so it was not only the Irish Government that was swearing allegiance to the British Crown but Fianna Fáil, coming triumphantly into the Dáil for the first time, were also signing the document——

Seán Ó Donnabháin

We did not take an oath.

Tomás Ó Maoláin

The Senator is talking moonshine now. He does not know a damn thing about it.

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

I can understand that the tu quoque argument hurts some people, but for anybody who would say that this was a queer thing to be happening in 1927, I think it legitimate to point out that the Trinity College authorities were not the only people at that time to do honour to the Crown.

The other point I want to make is that at Trinity College then and now— as in the Seanad, I hope—we have the right to discuss and argue freely. We have the right to defend our views and our beliefs and opinions, whether political or religious, in every field. Each of us has a right, and I would say even a duty, to express and defend his opinion, whether he be a Unionist, Republican, Socialist or Liberal, whether Catholic or Presbyterian, Methodist, Jew or Humanist——

Tomás Ó Maoláin

Or Dr. Sheehy Skeffington.

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

I suggest that the graduates emerging from Trinity College emerge better informed about other points of view and other politics and religions, and not only that, but better informed about their own beliefs, from having had to discuss and, if necessary, defend them. I suggest that they emerge better men and women from this atmosphere of free examination of ideas. They emerge better people and better citizens.

That brings me to the consideration of the whole function of a university. This is obviously one of its major functions — the production of better citizens, better members of the community. Its functions, of course, can be divided into two or three groups. One may speak of the necessity to teach. One can speak of the necessity to engage in original research, and I think one can talk also, not only about teaching and research, but about education. I should like to see a separation and distinction, as is made in the French language, between instruction and education. I think it is legitimate, the instruction coming in from outside and the education being encouraged to come from within. It was Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his treatise on education who said that the important thing in education, the most useful rule of all, is not to save time but to spend it. Thus, the four-year course, in my opinion, is a better university course by very reason of that fact, and of other facts, than the three-year course. The most important thing in education is not to save time, so as to rush ahead to get more and more quickly into the rat-race in the hope of becoming a senior rat at an earlier age, but to spend time and spend it well in free investigation.

Rousseau further says that the function of education is to teach people to live in a positive way and not merely to continue to exist. He makes the point—it illustrates what I have been saying—that the process of education should aim at producing first the man and only afterwards the lawyer, the doctor, the engineer, the teacher or whatever it may be. It is the person, the citizen, the man who should first be aimed at. This encouragement and this teaching combined may be of a formal kind. It may be encouraged by tutorials and discussion seminars, and I think it is quite clear that the tutorial method which has been on the increase with us will be hampered to some extent if the staff-student ratio is not improved. I do not want to go into that in too great detail; I feel sure it is a point that has been made again and again to the Minister.

I also think that examinations in the university, while they may offer a guide both to the quality of the student and also a guide to the student as to the lines of his reading and study, must be seen in perspective, and I have sympathy with the legend of the Indian students of long ago who used to boast of having among their qualifications that they had failed BA (Cantab.). One might smile at the boast that they had been at Cambridge although they had failed all their examinations, but it would seem to me quite legitimate. What they were boasting of was something real, because being at university is something of value, apart entirely from the examinations.

I stress the fact that a residential college has advantages, and this is something one looks forward to at Belfield where it will be brought about. The dining on Commons in Trinity College is part of the education. The fact that there are no set places at table, that students find themselves in different groups almost every evening, with people whose ideas and views and even accents are different—this churning up of student opinion evening after evening is part and parcel of the stuff of university education, and is one of the things that differentiate it in a valuable way from the technical college where one could attend lectures and classes of first quality, and then go away and not share in any community life. It is Jean Paul Sartre who says about Hell that Hell is "the other people". I believe the university, in so far as one can regard it as a heaven, is the other people. This, of course, adds strength to my view that the more they are mixed up together, the wider the variety of ideas students have, the wider source from which a student is drawn, the better and richer the undergraduate fabric will be.

I was speaking to a French professor of English in the University of Lille not so long ago. I asked him how many students there were in Lille University. He answered by saying "As you know, there are no universities in France." I said "What do you mean?" This was obviously a paradox. "Well," he said, "I know we have 900 university students studying English in Lille. I am furthermore credibly informed there are 19,000 university students in Lille, but never see many of them other than my own, and I rarely see any of my colleagues in the other disciplines. That is why I say there are no universities. We have not got what you have in organised community and collegiate life." This, of course, is sadly true in the French universities, which have wonderful standards and are leaders in research, but where student life is lived in sad isolation.

Part of the university structure must be this allowance for the community and collegiate life. It must allow also for student debate, and that debate must be free. I think we have a good rule in Trinity College that, if there is a subject which we feel is a subject on which student opinion and decision might be misinterpreted as being the opinion of Trinity College if it were debated in public, the Board reserves the right to say, not that the debate shall not be debated, but that this debate shall be held in camera. This is a power not abused. It very rarely happens. It is a legitimate power, but it maintains the idea of allowing students to debate any subject they like with the reservation that the Board may say for subject A or subject D “You must debate this among yourselves, the Press being absent.”

A further feature of which we are proud in Trinity College, and for which we owe a great debt of gratitude to the present Government, is the library facilities, the new library. I just stress the fact that this is one of the great libraries of these islands; the fact that we have the right of a free copy of any book published in these islands helps to make for the student mind, if you like, a wonderful place in which to roam. This, too, is part of the university education.

Finally, on the function of a university, I just want to make the point that never again in the life of any of these individuals will he or she have immediate access to the growing minds of so many young people of roughly his or her own age. There are 3,000 or 4,000 of his or her student contemporaries. They have more leisure than they will admit sometimes, and consequently this access to this wide section of contemporary minds is part and parcel of what is very precious in university education. But this university education must not, as I have indicated, in future be class based. Entry must not be a question of a financial test above all. Furthermore, there must be, in the true university, in the student body, a real mixture of class and creed and colour and sex and even of subjects studied, because part of what makes the university is the fact that a wide variety of subjects, a wide spectrum of subjects, must be taught on the same campus, in the same college, in the same university. There must be no religious barrier; there must be no class barrier; there must be no barrier of any kind in the admission to the university except the barrier of lack of merit—of the capacity to benefit from the education. This must and does lead to an interplay of minds and a clash of ideas and a wide variety of student opinion engaging with the staff in a form of disinterested collaboration in the search for truth.

The university, I feel, must be at least in part residential, and this is not sufficiently the case, I am afraid, in any of our universities today. It must be co-educational. I should like to see it residential and co-educational also, as for instance in the University of Essex. It should be concerned above all with the allowing and the encouragement of the students to mature intellectually within the walls of the university. It is a healthy thing, and something for which we can be grateful in Dublin, that in both of the universities here the students within the university walls can be somebody and can play a part they consider important, but when they go outside the walls they are cut down to size by the fact that they are out in a capital city.

I would say to the Minister that if it were the case that the money for education is severely limited—and I suppose in a sense this is true—I would be the first to concede that the first level at which the money must be spent is at the primary level. Our prime duty is to the primary schools and the primary school children; only after that the secondary schools and the vocational schools and only after that the universities. While talking about the universities and the advantages, requirements and needs of the universities, I think those of us who represent universities must not allow ourselves to forget that the major crying need is still for a fair chance for the primary school children.

I suggest that with good planning university expenditure can be rationalised without, I suggest, any need for a merger. I note that the Minister is contemplating starting in Ballyfermot two large secondary schools——

Mr. Garret FitzGerald

Non-coeducational.

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

——one for boys and one for girls. It is a little puzzling. I think the figures mentioned were that each school would have 750 pupils. Each of them presumably will be fully equipped with kitchens, science laboratories and all the necessary separate equipment. At that level and with only about 700 in each school the Minister has been asked to regard it as necessary to found two, not one. There is no merger in Ballyfermot. The merger must be between a college of from 8,000 to 10,000 university students and another of 3,000 or 4,000 students. To make these coagulate is the logical thing, we are asked to believe, from the point of view of expenditure, but in the secondary schools because boys and girls must be educated separately——

Mr. Garret FitzGerald

Not in Connaught.

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

——we take this retrograde step. I ask the Minister to put a question to himself in regard to the proposal for Ballyfermot and to ask himself whether the duplication of resources and equipment there would be regarded as "wasteful" at university level.

A degree of specialisation will be necessary in the two universities. I look forward to seeing University College a separate university in its own right, Trinity College remaining a separate university. Both will grow, but I believe that they can stand on their own feet, and I believe that expenditure between the two can be rationalised without the merger, which I believe would be destructive in effect. Close co-operation between the two, yes, but my contention would be that University College and Trinity College will best serve Ireland by being helped to evolve, as before, as strong and varying and independent universities. It is true that UCD will be the bigger and the stronger, and I would say good luck to it; we in Trinity College shall offer friendly rivalry in similar fields, all class and money barriers having been removed, all bigotry having been set aside, with here and there, of course, a difference of opinion, a difference perhaps of emphasis, and yet, among the six or ten or twelve Irish universities of the future, I can see both UCD and TCD each playing its part as what one might call separate academic twins in this city of Dublin, not identical twins and certainly not Siamese twins, but each playing a separate and vital role in the service of our common city and our common country, and, in a small way, perhaps, in the service of Europe and the world outside.

Mr. O'Kennedy

We learn in the early stages of the summary of this Report that since its inaugural meeting in November, 1960, the Commission undertook a study of comparative institutions in most European countries and they noted that there had been little or no contact between the institutes of higher education here and in the countries which they had visited previously. A very significant fact emerges. Three of the major industrial and, as might be said, cultural nations of Europe— France, Italy and Luxembourg—were not visited by any member of the Commission in connection with their inquiries.

We are all aware of the fact that for a long number of years the Commission were meeting in almost strict privacy, as is the custom with commissions or committees, but one is somewhat surprised that the privacy was so effective that they were scarcely aware of the fact that one of our aims was, and still is, entry into the European Community, three of the nations of which have institutions which certainly merit study but which did not, apparently, warrant any direct inspection or visit from the Commission.

My remarks will be based more or less on the summary of the Report and in so far as they may be patchy, this can be in some way attributed to the report itself in that I intend to follow seriatim the items outlined in the Report.

The first matter that comes to attention is that of structure. Under the heading of structure one matter noted by the Commission is that the majority of secondary teachers receive pedagogical training in University College. One wonders what the inference here is. Is it that some of the trainee teachers in university colleges do not receive pedagogical training or is it that some secondary teachers do not go to university, in any event?

One significant fact is clear to anyone who has experience of the humanities and the study of the humanities in University College, and that is, that there is hardly anything in the nature of pedagogical training, little or no fundamental training in the business of communication, in the business of projecting the study to the student. Certainly, very little effective work has been done—and I have no reason to believe that that is not still the case— in the university in this sphere. This is a matter to which the Commission directed some serious attention both in this sphere and in regard to the proposals relating to new colleges to which I will come at a later stage. This is one of the very significant gaps in the university training of potential teachers. It is probable that the universities are somewhat consistent in this in that many of their own professors, indeed the vast majority of them, do not have any such training in their qualifications. I can recall being subjected in crowded university lecture rooms, for terms on end, to verbatim delivery from a little black notebook and I can recall the indignity which was suffered by a lecturer on one occasion when an impatient student asked him if he might be relieved of the obligation of attending further lectures and if he could borrow the notebook from which to copy the notes. This, in some instances, has been the tradition of university lecturing. I appreciate that the difficulties of overcrowding which have been pinpointed in the Commission's Report and of which all of us who have had any experience of them are aware, are a contributory factor but if it emerged that from the basic institution itself the example must be given that communication and conviction and the rousing of student interest is an essential ingredient in instruction the first function of university education and, indeed, of education at any level, would have been fulfilled.

Next in order of discussion in the summary of the Report, one comes to the emphasis on the lack of research which has so far been characteristic of our universities. I must say that this is one defect in our present university system which the Commission in their Report have done everything possible to highlight and to outline. I note also that Senator Garret FitzGerald in his very positive and detailed contribution to this debate made a very significant plea in this regard.

I recall attending an inaugural meeting of the Agricultural Science Association in University College some ten years ago. The President of the College at that time, who had not studied in the specialised field but who had a very distinguished academic career in his own sphere, remarked on the auditor's paper—the auditor having strongly pleaded for research in agricultural science studies—that he could see no benefit from research for students who were pursuing a pass degree. This from a man who was speaking from a very narrow experience, but who was very highly accomplished in humanistic studies. It may have been true of the classics that only honours students could derive any positive value from perusing ancient documents and patchy manuscripts but it was scarcely true of such a fundamental and positive study as agricultural science that research would not be beneficial in the case of pass students. That notion still appears to exist, although this Report and all that has been said on it should do a lot to remove it as soon as possible.

Senator FitzGerald also covered in great detail and very effectively the financial assistance which is made available to our universities and our university students by comparison with that being made available in Great Britain and other European countries. In the year 1966-67, which is the year referred to in the summary of the Report, approximately £300,000 was made available to students by way of financial assistance either directly from the State or through local authorities. This compares with an overall expenditure on the universities, as far as I can ascertain from this report, of £7 million. There appears to be an imbalance here.

Surely the fundamental concern in university training, indeed, in education at any level, is the man and the development of the man. When one finds that so little assistance is directed towards the recipient himself, one feels that this is an aspect which merits some further study. I appreciate that much of the £7 million goes to providing research facilities, such as they are, and other necessary facilities for the students. However, I can recall vividly students of very definite ability who obtained university scholarships some ten or 12 years ago and could not afford to go to university even with the scholarship. This anomaly persists to a certain extent today but we can feel confident that it will not persist much longer. The Minister has clearly indicated his strong belief that ability must be given the opportunity of developing, and it is hoped that no such outrageous restriction will arise in the future.

The increase which we note in the numbers who are attending universities and which it is anticipated will continue is very encouraging. With increasing grants and loans which it is hoped will be made available to students, many of whom are really the stuff of this nation, these people will have the opportunity of emerging from a social structure in which their parents and grandparents have been confined. This is what they not only need but the nation needs, the cross-current of their thinking and their positive contribution.

One notes that between 1959 and 1965 there was an increase of almost 300 per cent in those attending the constituent colleges of the National University, while in the same period there was an increase of only about 25 per cent in those attending Trinity College. In view of the stated policy of Trinity College of reducing the numbers of, shall we say, non-native students to 15 per cent by 1970, there should be a greater opportunity of catering for this increasing demand in Trinity than exists at present. There are other factors. We are all aware of the restriction which is so often spoken of and debated in regard to attendance at Trinity College. I would share, as, I am sure, would most reasonably objective thinkers in this country the sympathy of the students and professors of Trinity who may be impatient of this restriction.

While on that point, I must say I was not at all convinced by the recommendations of Most Reverend Dr. Philbin in the report for the continuance of the restriction on Catholic students attending Trinity College. Those in Trinity can rightfully say: "How can our numbers increase? How can we make our facilities available to the nation, when the nation, or a vast proportion of the nation, will not allow us to make those facilities so available?" Whatever else is accomplished by this proposed merger, having regard to whatever safeguards each religious group might find necessary, it is hoped that at least it can function without imposing any further distinctions, particularly on religious grounds, on this community of ours. This merger of the two universities could open a new and positive avenue of cooperation in, may I say it again, these ecumenical times. When the Archbishop of Canterbury can preach in Westminster Cathedral and in various other denominational churches, one wonders how there can be anything fundamentally objectionable about students receiving instruction in humanistic and other spheres of education in, shall we say, a lay university which is certainly not anti-Catholic in its approach and, as I understand, has always been ready to offer every facility to Roman Catholics and to encourage students and staff in the formation of their own religious beliefs.

Other matters emerge from this Report as broad general principles, and are so clearly stated that any brief comment of mine would be rather facile and ineffective. However, a very clear case has been made for the absolute urgency of effective post-graduate studies. I take it that the members of the Commission were, either through previous experience or the development of experience during the course of their studies in the Commission, aware of the vast facilities for post-graduate studies, particularly in the United States, facilities to which, indeed, we ourselves owe a great debt. Many of our own highly qualified post-graduates who have now come back to make their contribution have undergone their post-graduate studies in the United States. The technological development of that nation, which must always be balanced by humanistic and moral development—a matter which we ourselves can and should guard—has in no small way been effected by the intense post-graduate studies which are available to their university graduates.

Coming back again, as I say, in somewhat patchy fashion, to the question of numbers, following the line of the Report, it is noted that approximately 26,000 students are expected to be receiving university education here by 1970, and the Commission's Report suggests that this should be our target having regard to our economic capacity. Each and every one of us will agree that it is a matter of prior urgency to ensure that our economic capacity is such that it will be able to achieve the target set. I was rather surprised, though in a way sympathetic, by the argument that, if we cannot increase the staff so as to maintain a proper staff-student ratio by 1970, the university should immediately restrict entry until such time as that proper ratio—I think one to 12 —can be realised.

We have had enough of neglected generations in those years when things, perhaps, were not always in our own hands and we should never agree to any restriction of the right of entry to university merely because the staff-student ratio will not permit of effective university training. The fact is that when those of us here went through university the staff-student ratio was far higher than the ratio proposed here. University may not have had the impact on us that it might have had had the ratio been somewhat lower but we would have been highly offended and very frustrated had we been refused the opportunity of receiving university education simply because the ratio was above the acceptable norm. I take issue with the Commission in that argument. While I have sympathy with the essence of the ratio suggested, however else the problem may be solved, it must not be solved at the expense of the very people whom it is intended to benefit by university education.

With regard to the increased numbers whom it is hoped will be attending university and with regard to the growing emphasis on post-graduate study, in recent times we have had more than our share of experience of eminent foreign consultants advising us on everything from planning our countryside to agricultural development, and so on. While I do not criticise the findings of these consultants, it would be a great boost to the morale of our people if we could successfully get across the idea that the Irishman who has had the benefit of post-graduate study and research is every bit as good and just as well qualified to advise as these foreign consultants. He should be every bit as well qualified in view of his circumstances and better qualified because of the commitment he will have to the nation which has educated him. He would have to stand up to ordinary private and public criticism, something these foreign consultants do not have to tolerate. This is an important consideration. Our experts should in the future save us expense in the field of consulting. Secondly, it will be a boost to the morale of our people if we establish that we ourselves are, if not entirely adequate, almost adequate to our own needs.

The next matter raised in the Report is that of the new college. I have little or no enthusiasm for this concept of a new college with a limited curriculum, limited both in scope and in quality. The areas delegated feel they will be asked to give a second-class service. The very nature of higher education negatives the idea of a college which would deal, for example, with a pass Bachelor of Arts degree. There is no limit to study and development in the humanities and no limit to the development of the mind and we cannot now conceive of a limited type of study obviously presided over by a limited type of person.

Mr. P. O'Reilly

(Longford): A second-class mind.

Mr. O'Kennedy

A second-class mind, as Senator O'Reilly says. This second-class force, so to speak, established in this second base is supposed to relieve congestion in universities proper. I have seen no strong argument advanced in this Report for this new type of college, though it is suggested it might be somewhat cheaper. There may be some measure of economy involved in this, but the argument has not been effectively proved. I do not think it has even been effectively raised. I see no good reason why an extension of university facilities proper to such areas should be more expensive or costly than the proposed colleges of limited development and jurisdiction.

There is one worthwhile recommendation in relation to this concept of a new college, namely, that science courses should include the arts. That is the only part of the Report which spells out the necessity for a study of the arts in specialised fields. Senator Sheehy Skeffington pointed out that the first aim of a university is the development of the man in relation to the part he will play in the community. One of the handicaps of the present system is that while the specialist is trained the man is neglected. I know of no more effective way of blinding a man than confining him to an intense course of specialised study for five or eight years and neglecting everything else which does not immediately relate to his particular specialisation. Study of the arts is immensely valuable in the full development of the mind and it is absolutely vital that the graduate, when he became a leader in his community, as most graduates do, should have an awareness not only of his own immediate field, so to speak, but also of the realities of life outside his own limited sphere. It is significant that representation, not so much in this House but in the Lower House, does not at all reflect adequately the specialised professions of this country. For some reason or another, save in your presence, a Leas-Chathaoirleach, engineering, architectural science, veterinary medicine and even agricultural science have not got possibly the opportunity, certainly not the experience, of active political interest. At a time when politics and politicians need a certain amount of uplifting in the public mind and their image needs to be somewhat improved, surely there is a crying need for these very people to have the best our education can offer. These are the very people who should be giving back to the nation what the nation has given to them. I feel firmly convinced that their university education should not in their own nation ignore everything which has no direct relation to their own specialised studies.

It has been said that Trinity College for a long number of years has been an exception to this, and I understand still is to a certain extent, but I was rather stunned to hear today when I inquired from my Trinity colleagues here that they have found that this is a matter of immense importance; that it is very difficult to continue a study of the arts and the humanities in conjuction with specialised undergraduate studies. I understand that the tradition in Trinity, and a very desirable tradition it was and still is in so far as it can be worked, was that any graduate in engineering, or a doctor or whatever he might be was also encouraged to do a basic degree in the humanities. It is fair comment to say that if that were so it explains itself fairly effectively in the Trinity graduates.

It is a pity that for one reason or another they have found that they will possibly have to relinquish this very desirable aspect of the general professional studies. I would hope that the position would be that we would ensure that Trinity——

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

Hear, hear.

Mr. O'Kennedy

——either as a separate university or as part of University College, Dublin and all the constituent colleges of the National University of Ireland would not only not have to relinquish such a vital link in vital educational training but that they would develop it where it does not now exist.

The Report deals at some length with the lack of technological training. This is one of the spheres in relation to which many in this House are qualified to comment in greater detail than I can. I would say, however, that it sets out clearly, and I think, basically, the functions which the proposed technological authority would have. The first thing that strikes me is that one is entirely desirable and has not always been anything like as adequate as it should be. This could be a source of technological innovation which would stimulate guidance in industry. This type of liaison between our research studies, our post-graduate studies and our productive economy is crying out for development. Such a technological authority, I think, deserves every commendation and every facility and any comment which emerges from this Report shows that the Commission have highlighted in this a very significant gap and have proposed a very effective solution.

Perhaps I might go back just for a moment because the matter I wish to deal with has already been dealt with to some extent. That is teacher-training. The Report refers to vocational training and the training schools for vocational teachers. At one stage it made a very guarded and rather inhibited statement that teacher or pedagogic training for all categories of vocational teachers is generally desirable. It is not only desirable but essential. I can say that not only would that —and I speak from a limited experience as part-time teacher in vocational schools—increase and supplement an understanding of education but would lead to better liaison between the various grades and types of vocational teachers. On occasion I experienced directions as to the standard or method of teaching in English or Irish from a headmaster whose only qualification was that he had spent three months in Connemara and was fluent in Irish. I think that many teachers in their own spheres experience the same type of direction from men who might not have been as qualified in their own specialised sphere in the junior vocational schools in metalwork, woodwork or mechanical drawing. I attach no blame to those men for not having that ability but it is evident that surely there is need that even in the course of their own teaching activities they would have a basic notion on what teaching is about. A number can happily have the position of authority in their schools. But, they should know sufficient about teaching in their spheres to recognise the limits of their own staffs. As Socrates said—the first beginning of knowledge is to know the extent of your own ignorance. This is clearly exemplified in our schools.

Those who have a broader basis of study are those who are more tolerant of the qualifications and the standards of the qualifications of the teachers directly under them. Those who have a limited basis of study like all limited minds are those who are most intolerant and most unfair with men who are better qualified than they are in the sphere in which they are teaching.

Music was passed over very quickly and quietly in the report. I feel I may be charged at this stage with developing the notion of the complete man who knows nothing at all about a subject, but some of the greatest scientists of our time and, indeed, the first scientists, the old Greek scientists, and the school of philosophy in that era, were firmly convinced of the value of music, as of the arts, in the sphere of fundamental education. Mark you, probably because I have not had this benefit of knowing how it is that music may fully influence the mind of man, I cannot say how effective or wide this could be but it is something we might consider in somewhat greater detail than the Commission appears to have considered it. Music is not just for musicians. It is another form of expression which is available, or should be available, to every man in the community and it may sometimes make us a little more tolerant and probably make us appreciate more the essential beauties which will be there after a lot of us have gone.

There is also a passing reference to the training of the Garda, that the question might be considered in some fashion or another of combining Garda training with university training. It is left there for obvious reasons. The question is a difficult and far-reaching one. I have as healthy a respect for the Garda as the next person and I would suggest that whatever extension one would give them in the nature of university studies, they could benefit very effectively from, shall we say, basic instruction in the business of courtesy and general etiquette. As I say, I respect the type of young man who offers himself to the Garda Síochána. I know that the vast majority of them are representative of the best type of our citizens, and possibly all of them, but coming before the public as they do at such a relatively undeveloped age, and given a certain amount of authority, some of them fall into the trap, which the rest of us would probably fall into if we were armed with the same authority, of sometimes confusing authority with ill manners. I offer this as no criticism of the Garda at all, but to make their job easier in some ways and help the public to understand them better, if we are in any way to extend the courses of training for them. There are indications that the public do not always understand them as well as they should. We should give them every facility for a fundamental liaison in dealing with the public.

I was also surprised to see that the Commission relied on the fact that Gladstone in 1873 and Bryce in 1907 had suggested a federated university of Ireland which apparently, for one reason or another, was not feasible at that time. To me they appeared to say that because it was not feasible then, it was even less feasible now. For instance, they say that the validity of historical precedent cannot be maintained in circumstances that have now radically changed. Perhaps I am misreading this, but I read it that this historic precedent is not now valid because circumstances have so vitally changed. Of course they have. Circumstances must be seen in the light of the demands at present and the resources available at present. If I read that aright, it is an example of setting up an argument which no one else proposed for the purpose of establishing your own case.

They also say that an effective centralisation of power and authority, which might be held to be a justification for a new federal university, would be incompatible with the autonomy at present exercised by the individual colleges. So what? If it is incompatible with the autonomy exercised by the colleges, that is no good reason why it should be undesirable in the future. I have not gone in detail —indeed I have not gone into it at all —into the rights or wrongs of a merger of UCD and Trinity or any other university, but I think that where I see facile arguments like that against any merger or federation, they should be contradicted immediately.

There is one passing reference to theological studies in the summary; that the restriction which is apparently acting at present in one fashion or another on theological studies in UCD should if possible be removed. I suppose by this one would expect a closer liaison between UCD and St. Patrick's, Maynooth, for instance. The only mention of theology is in relation to the fact that theology of the right sort might not be available in Trinity, but it is not available in the others on the Report's own argument. There is every good reason for establishing a department of theology in the University of Dublin. If a department of theology were available in this new University of Dublin for every creed and every class, it would go a long way to answering the inhibitions and criticisms of those who feel that one of our primary institutions cannot be made available to the vast majority of our young students.

The summary also deals with entry standards which operate at present or have operated up to recently. The Commission notes that the universities have now increased the entry standards to at least two honours in the general subjects proposed to be studied. All of us who up to a few years ago attended universities have vivid recollections of the chronic student who was always a great friend to everyone and —I say this in all honesty—who introduced many of us to the glories and amusements of this city. These chronic students spent ten, 12 or 14 years in the university and so qualified to introduce the younger students to the entertainments and variety of this lovely city. Yet, while the chronic student was sitting, not in his seat, but on a part of his own anatomy elsewhere, some other students were being prevented from going in to occupy the place which he never occupied in any event because he was only a notional student of from five to 14 years.

We had the ludicrous situation in the Veterinary College where diligent students who had passed their first year examination in pre-med. had to wait for two years before they could gain admission to the Veterinary College because some of those boys who had established a certain understanding in the College and enjoyed a certain respect did not decide to pass on. The pity of this was that some of the students had to wait for others to pass on for one reason or another or change their vocation, and these were the people who came out too late to enjoy the best season in the veterinary profession at the height of the tuberculosis eradication campaign. Had they entered the college two years earlier, they might have matched their income with that of many of the chronics who, when they saw the TB eradication campaign under way, decided: "Now is the time to get out of here, and quick." If the entry standards are increased and maintained at that level, we can hope to see the end of the chronic, even though he was a colourful person, and a beginning for the diligent student who does not intend to take eight years to qualify in a five year course. His objective is to get through in five years. He knows it may take him six or seven years but his intention is to qualify in five.

In the Report I note also that they cannot find any effective suggestion to bridge the gap between study of the humanities and scientific studies. They said they could not find any effective suggestion while all the time they had before them the example of Trinity College which itself was offering such an effective suggestion. They then decided that the tradition in Trinity was one that was certainly worth duplicating in other colleges. If they were aware that Trinity was being forced to withdraw from this great tradition they should have drawn attention to it and encouraged it in other colleges.

Lastly, I come to the reference to the Irish language and before I deal with that reference in the Commission's Report I should like to draw the attention of the House to something which is not in the Report. It is the ludicrous requirement that foreign students—I may not be quite up-to-date in my reference to nations—from Zambia to Zanzibar and from the West Indies, before qualifying in law must pass examinations in Irish. Mind you, you would not believe it if you saw the examinations in Irish they are required to pass. In any circumstances I cannot see how this does any service to the African students, to their studies or to the Irish language.

Mr. Garret FitzGerald

It spreads Irish culture.

Mr. O'Quigley

It gives them a certificate of competence.

Mr. O'Kennedy

I recall with great amusement the African students who studied with me trying to pronounce "tráinín" or "cúis dlí". One fellow suffered badly because he happened to bear the name of O'Brien for some reason or another.

Mr. O'Quigley

Maybe Conor Cruise was out that way.

Mr. O'Kennedy

A name like Obgelli might be said not to have Irish derivation but there is certainly no tolerance for an African O'Brien and he was one of the few people who failed the examination at the King's Inns. While on the subject of Irish we should tell the Benchers and the Incorporated Law Society by all means to maintain the Irish proficiency test for native students but to take the revolutionary step of getting rid of it as far as the African and Indian students are concerned. It might even have the desirable result of encouraging more of these students to come here and study in the knowledge that they will not have to pass a qualifying Irish test.

I was heartened at the Report in relation to its reference to Irish. It clearly indicated that it is not an uncommon experience in continental universities to find students studying two, three or four languages. In my limited experience on the Continent, the experience was not uncommon to me. It clearly gives the lie to those who say that the study of Irish or the speaking of Irish is an impediment to the study or speaking of other languages. It is no such thing. Anybody who knows the first fundamental about the essence of languages realises that proficiency in one language will assist a student in acquiring general proficiency: if you have a goose you will get a goose; if you have a language you will get a language. A proper study of Irish here in no way impedes the standard of study in other languages.

I sympathise with the difficulty the Commission faced, fairly and squarely, that when there is a university teaching through the medium of Irish, like Galway, it faces the obvious problem of a limitation of staff choice. The Commission suggest, and I agree with them, that rather than maintain the present proficiency test in Irish, which is hardly quite appropriate, opportunity should be made available to those willing to teach in Galway to undertake a sufficient study of Irish, and facilities and grants should be made available to them during reasonable periods and after that they should be capable of dealing with their subjects through Irish.

That about winds up my contribution to the motion except that I wholeheartedly agree with Senator Sheehy Skeffington and with Wolfe Tone, and Rousseau, and Sartre, that the function of education is to develop the man. In this context I refer Senator Sheehy Skeffington to another distinguished Trinity man, Thomas Davis, who delivered an inaugural address outside the walls of the college to the Philosophical Society. "Gentlemen," he said——

Professor Stanford

"You have a nation . . . "

Mr. O'Kennedy

" . . . if you are to achieve success you must be diligent and hardworking and pious. There is no short cut to success". If our system can develop the principle enunciated by Davis outside the walls of Trinity it will be doing an effective job.

Mr. Murphy

I shall be very brief. What I have to say is general and, I suppose, can be regarded as obvious. It might be no harm to say these obvious things because, naturally, the debate has been and will continue to be taken up largely by people who have particular knowledge and a vested interest—I do not say that in any derogatory sense—in the question of university education and of the merger of UCD and Trinity.

That largely makes my first point— that the question of university education is not a matter for university people only or for the universities. It is a matter of concern to the whole community, the whole nation. It has been said—again it is no harm to repeat it—that the people who attend universities in this country are a very privileged section. It is no harm to remind them and to remind ourselves that they are attending universities by reason of the subvention of the ordinary people—in other words, their education is subsidised.

I shall never be satisfied in regard to university education until we have attained the situation that entrance to university will be on the basis of ability of the student rather than the capacity to pay of the parent. Though the parent at the moment has to pay for university education, the fact still remains that even with that payment university education is being subsidised heavily.

People may quarrel and say it is not being subsidised. I want to repeat that it is subsidised educationally. If we go away from that point we have the situation that we are providing facilities from general taxation for the privileged section of our community to attend the university, better themfu selves and put themselves in a privileged position in relation to the rest of the community. I think it is not unreasonable to suggest that in most circumstances people who have got this privilege should devote their talents to the community at large. In other words, it seems to me to be a ridiculous situation that we should spend money on educating people to enable them to emigrate and take positions outside the country.

While this to my mind may be reasonable, unfortunately I do not think it is feasible. It is not practical to say to people who get a university education that they should spend a period of their lives or, indeed, their whole lives devoting their developed talents to the service of the community here. It might, of course, not be a very good thing that you would have such a rigid barrier if it was practical but to my mind it is a wholly undesirable situation that we export so many of our graduates. It seems to me that this is a bad thing and, as I said, it is not a desirable situation.

I hope the efforts of the universities in this direction will be further extended when we get the merger of UCD and Trinity.

While I made a criticism earlier of the fact that so many of our graduates emigrate having been subsidised by the community to get university education, that they shake the dust of the country from their feet and go off and earn good salaries outside the country, I would also like to say that I feel that the graduates who devote their talents to the community are having an increasing influence within the community. They seem to identify themselves more than was the case previously and this I feel is a very good thing. We are no longer looking with suspicion at university graduates but are accepting them and they are devoting their talents to the development of the social and economic fabric of the country. I want to acknowledge that, while at the same time repeating my criticism of the fact that so many of them, having had the benefit and the privilege of a university education, shake the dust of their country from their feet and forget all about the people who subsidised their education.

Dr. Alton

The topic before us for discussion is so wide that it would be very difficult to do anything except focus on the portion about which I have a special knowledge and some other facets which I feel require special consideration.

Senators G. FitzGerald and Stanford have ably covered the topic of the merger and I feel that the bodies which are studying the matter at present have shown that it should be possible to get a very just and gentle association. To get a good merger we should have a selflessness, a sharing of resources. We should then get an improved end product and a great stimulus towards the future. I feel that this can only be achieved along the lines laid down by Senator FitzGerald, that the major departments in the arts and science faculty will have to be retained in both universities and that these departments in both universities will be under unified control. The smaller and more specialised departments in the arts and science faculties may exist in one or other college but on the basis of the major departments one will have a very strong foundation on which one could build a proper university, or perhaps the word should be maintain a proper university. Into these different colleges then can be fed a sprinkling of the professional faculties. We would hope that the resulting balance would be one which would keep alive the spirit of both institutions. I feel that one of the most important things in the realisation of these plans is that the people who are going to put forward propositions should define very carefully. Talk about subjects, departments, disciplines and faculties unless very rigidly controlled tends to lead to confusion and one is not sure whether one is talking about the same faculty in the two universities or the same department in the two universities.

I would also, like Professor Stanford, be loth to see heads knocked together and shot-gun weddings proposed but I would not like to see the momentum and enthusiasm towards the merging of these institutions eroded by reactionary forces, by impossible conditions, or by the inertia of delay. I feel it will be up to the Minister and I hope he will continue to exert a steady and gentle pressure towards the completion of negotiations in a relatively reasonable space of time.

In its discussion on medicine the Commission came out with some rather startling facts. It suggested that we were taking on far too many medical students, somewhere in the neighbourhood of 450 and that we should be taking on about 170. As a corollary to this it is suggested that we have far too many medical schools and it inferred that we should have two or, at the most, three instead of five. It then proceeded to enunciate the reasons why Cork and Galway should be continued and presumed the continuation of UCD. It skated over the future of TCD and accepted the Royal College of Surgeons as being a rather charitable institution which would not cost too much and which could deal with overseas students.

The Commission further went on to show that on the Continent and in England a medical student cost about £1,700 a year, whereas in Ireland the cost varies between £200 and £700, depending on the college. It finally showed that our student-full time teacher ratio was at the very old figure of 17 to 1 as against, say, the University of Manchester which copes with an area of about the same size as Ireland and where the student-full time teacher ratio is 4 to 1. As a result, the Commission seemed to show that we were taking on too many students, doing it far too cheaply and teaching them too badly. I do not think some of these conclusions are quite valid.

As far as our hospital services are concerned we are short in the junior staff levels of something like 300 doctors so that we would need an output of a further 50 doctors per year over the figure suggested by the Commission if we were properly to fill posts vacant in the hospitals. There are other services also with empty posts. The problem is, as the Minister knows from his previous position as Minister for Health, that it is hard to get our young doctors to stay in Irish hospitals. They tend to drift abroad, perhaps because of wanderlust or perhaps for more lucrative or attractive posts. We seem to be drifting towards the stage that England is in, when many junior hospital posts are held by doctors from overseas who find the appointments at a level they regard as being far more than adequate for their purposes even though our own young doctors prefer to leave.

The prospect of the merger, however, seems to have put a whole new life into the entire medical situation. Suddenly, we seem to have the possibility of one medical school in Dublin which would not only revitalise medical teaching but would also give us a chance completely to rationalise the Dublin hospital situation. For the first time we see the possibility of avoiding duplication and triplication and if the merger goes through and proceeds with the development of one medical school, then all our problems of unification of the Dublin hospital system will follow very logically one after the other. So, apart from the educational prospects, the prospect of the merger of TCD and UCD is very important now.

At this stage I feel it is a great pity that the Royal College of Surgeons was not included in the merger plan. I wonder if it is too late for the Minister to use his good offices in trying to include the College of Surgeons in the plan for medical school unification. At present, while it is not a very big body, and while it may have a rather short lifespan under present circumstances, the College of Surgeons is a very active body, very keen, enthusiastic and aggressive with a very independent notion and with great possessiveness in regard to the hospitals in which it may be working. Consequently, the College could be a splinter group which would prevent the full achievement of medical school unity in Dublin and, in its way, prevent full achievement of hospital unity. Therefore, if at all possible, it would be nice to include this last outsider in the case of medical schools in the overall policy for Dublin.

The unification that is envisaged will affect the whole country because it is from this unification that national centres will spring up for the treatment of different conditions which could be more easily provided under more favourable circumstances. If and when the merger takes place the combined medical school would probably have teaching complexes in the north and south and possibly west of Dublin. There are geographical reasons which make it appear as if the medical faculty should be centrally situated and this would mean at TCD. I think this would be necessary as otherwise distance will make these hospitals and teaching units break up into teaching hospitals on the English plan. That is what occurred in London, where hospitals were their own universities, so to speak, and after 50 years experience of this they have found it most unsatisfactory and they are abandoning it. Therefore, wherever the centre for teaching medical students is, it should be central. This is common practice in most big cities: the medical faculty has remained in the central area while the other faculties have gone out to the suburbs. It appears that the doctors prefer to stick to the patients while the other faculties prefer a quieter, more rustic life.

There are two other points I should like to make. The Commission suggested one chief centre for teaching and, by implication, this would be Dublin. I think the Minister should bear in mind that the centres provided for Cork and Galway should only differ from that provided in Dublin by being smaller. It would be a terrible thing to create first-and second-class centres. I feel that if medical teaching is to continue in Cork and Galway the facilities there should be just as good as in Dublin and only on a smaller scale.

The last point I want to make as regards medicine is to bring to the Minister's notice an odd position which exists in the Dublin teaching hospitals. Over the years nobody has taken an interest, financial or otherwise, in the facilities provided for students in these hospitals. By facilities I mean teaching, recreational and residential facilities. The Department of Health cannot undertake this because it is outside their legal scope. The universities are more interested in the basic sciences and subjects and will have nothing to do with the students once they go to the hospitals. They will pay a stipend to the person giving the lectures and provide small items of equipment such as projectors but will do nothing about ordinary facilities such as buildings, classrooms, chairs, tables, lighting, cleaning and everything like that. None of this is included in the university plans for the hospitals.

There was a time when the hospitals had a private income and could provide these facilities but that day has gone. What moneys they get now are purely for the purposes of the patients. Therefore, unless something is done about this situation the teaching hospitals will undergo a decay from the point of view of their teaching facilities. I appeal very strongly to the Minister to extend the arm of the Department of Education into the facilities for medical students in the various hospitals.

Outside medicine, one of the points in the Commission's Report which worried me was the setting up of the new colleges. Granted, one can see there is a very obvious reason behind this. Here we had overcrowded universities, a very high percentage of students failing in the first year and a large percentage of students only going on to a pass degree. At the same time, we had provincial towns and centres looking for higher educational facilities and anxious to have them. The obvious conclusion was to put them together and give us a liberal arts institution situated in a town and this would look after the students who were overcrowding the universities and admit them up to a pass degree. Now, I think this is the point that makes it fail: admitting them and teaching them up to a pass degree. I think this degree is not going to be a good one. It is going to go to somebody who really should never have been in the university, should never have got that far. It is going to be a third-rate degree in a second-rate institute. In many ways the overcrowding of universities and the production of this type of student is a black mark on the university. It existed in the days when numbers were considered to be of importance to give prestige to the universities so that they could appear more and more important and build up their image; and as such they allowed their entry standards to be quite low. To get this type of overflow is a very poor foundation for a new liberal arts institution.

My feeling about this is that, if there is scope in the provincial town for a liberal arts university, let there be one put up there and let its teaching and degrees be as good as any other university in any other part of the country. On the other hand, if we want an institution which will give some higher education, let us put a liberal arts academy in the provincial towns and give diplomas and certificates which would certify the degree of proficiency to which a student has reached. After all, if there is a good student in the town, a first-class honours boy, and he wants a university education, either he gets it in the university in the town or he is entitled to financial help to go to one of the proper universities to get it. It is not fair to give him second-rate training if he is a first-rate boy.

Even more than this I was worried about the prospect of teacher-training being linked to the new colleges. Senator Brosnahan made the point that their intake in the national teachers training colleges was of such a high standard that they would be well entitled to get into a proper university rather than starting a new college very similar to one. I do not think it would be fair to these boys to link them with anything other than a first-class university. Mind you, the teachers could help us in this problem if they solved some of their own organisational ones and we got a coalescence of the national, secondary and vocational teachers into one body. Then the only real entry qualification for a teacher would be a vocation for teaching and an aptitude and ability as shown by scientific test. You could then let a boy into training and proceed along a university-linked pathway to a point which showed his maximum intellectual capacity. Having got him like that and having taught him the elements of teaching, he could then be permitted to enter a teaching range at whatever point appeared most suitable to his ability. We would then not have the state where you could have a first-class, highly qualified national teacher never allowed to teach a high level class and a very mediocre pass degree teacher teaching a leaving certificate honours class. This is a bad state of affairs. I am not, of course, quite sure that a person with a good vocation for teaching and suitable therefor would not be able to take the most junior class in a national school with a diploma or certificate from some approved institution. I do not see why a university degree should be necessary for this level of teaching. Aptitude and suitability are perhaps more important.

The last point I should like to make is on the chapter dealing with agriculture and veterinary sciences and technological training. I was disturbed to see that the Commission tried to cure troubles in both of these chapters by producing new authorities. In the case of agriculture and veterinary science it wanted to produce a national college of agriculture and veterinary science and put these two together and, among other things, break up a rather natural combination of medicine and veterinary science. It is only in the last few years that medicine and veterinary science have succeeded in getting together in the one university. They are kindred subjects and it would be a terrible pity to separate them again. Whatever chance veterinary medicine has of becoming a real science it is by keeping in step with the more compulsorily advancing subject, medicine.

The same thing applies to the technological side. There was to be a technological authority. One can appreciate the worries of the Commission in this regard. It was obviously regarding agriculture and animal products connected with agriculture as being the basic industry of this country and trying to see how best it could produce a good technology to serve this industry and to do good by the country. Equally, it recognised that our industry is very young and immature and was trying to produce better technologists to further industry needed in this country. But it was going the wrong way about it. It had the example of the Agricultural Institute, an outside body very technologically-minded and doing excellent work. It immediately visualised the notion "Let us combine the teaching there with the Institute, put it under one control and we have a very good unit both from the point of view of education and from the point of view of the country at large."

I do not think this was the right approach. It should remember that the university product is really a technologist. If we take the products from schools of engineering, colleges of technology and from the agricultural and veterinary faculties the graduate turned out is a boy who is being taught the basic sciences and on top of that he is being given the applied sciences necessary to the work he is going to do.

Therefore, when he leaves he is an adaptable creature who knows what you are talking about. He can be put to work in any number of smaller fields related to his science and in these fields he can work up a tremendously concentrated knowledge and be of great use. But you start with the graduate; he is your starting point. There is tremendous scope for a technological institute, an agricultural institute and a veterinary institute whose job will be to take the graduate, direct him, make arrangements for placing him where he can be trained in different aspects of industry. There are some places where he can get training in this country, for example in the ESB, but in other industries he must go away. It would be the job of the institute to place these young men where they would be best looked after and trained. On their return they could be put into jobs, either research or more practical jobs or perhaps organisation and administration. I would make the plea that the institute, while very valuable, should work on the product of the university, on the graduate, and not get into the teaching and training in the university. They can advise and suggest and they can indicate the type of graduate they want but I do not think they should cut into it. If they do this they will weaken the university, they will produce a teaching faculty which will be not subject to outside influences and which after a few years will become dead and without stimulus towards improvement.

One really must pay tribute again to the Commission for the amount of work they have done. One may not agree with all the things they have said but they have done a tremendous factfinding job and have certainly given us the basis of a lot of future decisions.

Mr. Yeats

This has been a very welcome and so far very useful debate. It gives us the chance to discuss this very elaborate Report that has been issued by the Commission on Higher Education and it gives us the chance to consider the university system as a whole and also the question of the proposed merger between Trinity College and University College, Dublin.

This debate began with what can fairly be described as a most detailed, elaborate and constructive speech from Senator Garret FitzGerald which has set the whole basis on which the debate has been able to proceed. In saying this, though, I ought to mention that listening to Senator FitzGerald and reading his speech later in the Official Report I did feel that in some respects at least he took an unduly pessimistic view of our university system. I feel rather diffident about saying this because it would be so easy to create an impression that I myself believed that all was well or even reasonably well with our university system. So, I hasten to say that I go along, as everybody else goes along, with the Report of the Commission that all is by no means well with our university system. But, where I do take issue with Senator FitzGerald is that, perhaps, in a desire to make a generally highly acceptable case, he has on occasion been tempted to go a bit farther than perhaps the facts really warrant. For example, while we can all agree that a very great deal needs to be done to our universities, a great deal of money needs to be spent, facilities need to be provided, and while we can also agree that nothing like enough has been done in the past, at the same time I do think it is not entirely fair of Senator FitzGerald to say that during the six years that the Commission sat, there was, as he put it, complete neglect, that the fact that the Commission was sitting was taken as a good reason for doing nothing at all. Looking at this from just one point of view, the overall figure of money spent on the universities, we find that in the financial year 1961-62, £1,152,000 was spent on the universities; in the present financial year the estimated expenditure is over three times that amount—£3,792,000 odd. I accept that that is a threefold increase on an unduly low figure.

Mr. Garret FitzGerald

Is this recurrent or total expenditure? Does it include capital?

Mr. Yeats

Capital and current. I accept that this is a threefold increase on an unduly low figure. I accept also that the amount being spent this year is nothing like enough but I do think that a threefold increase—more than threefold—over a period of only six years is not, at any rate, complete neglect. Indeed, if in the next six years we can have another such threefold increase in expenditure then I think the state of our universities in 1972 will not be too bad.

The Senator also made a point which depressed me at the time, until I looked into it and found that I need not be quite so depressed as I had been, when he said that we have fallen in the past few years even further behind Great Britain than we already were. This is not altogether true. One has to take into account not merely the amount spent per student here and in Great Britain. It is fair also to take into account the number of students. Between 1957 and 1963 the total number of university students in Ireland went up by 56 per cent. The total number of university students in Britain went up by only 28 per cent. In other words, the increase in the number of students here was double the increase that took place in England. In the years since 1963-64 this discrepancy in the increase in the number of students in the two countries has probably widened still further because this year the total number of university students in the Twenty-six Counties is double what it was in 1955. We have, in fact, had a very big increase in our student body over the past ten years.

What has happened, in other words, and which explains at least a part of the discrepancy in the amount of money per student spent here and in Great Britain, to which Senator FitzGerald rightly drew attention, is that Great Britain has tended to concentrate on giving much better university facilities for, relatively speaking, a small number of students. We, in this country, on the other hand, have tried to cater for a vast expansion in the total student body. This difference of attitude is expressed very clearly in the figures for honours degrees. In Britain, 70 per cent of all primary university degrees are honours whereas with us the figure is only 31 per cent. In other words, while there may be exceptions, generally speaking, admission to a university in Britain is dependent on ability to take an honours course. This is not so with us. We may well have gone too far in the opposite direction but the fact remains that Great Britain has succeeded to some extent in increasing its facilities per student at the expense of excluding a very large number of people who otherwise might have been able to obtain a university education. We have taken, on the whole, a better course even if we have not provided enough money to cater adequately for the increasing number of students.

As a result of this difference of attitude we have the figures which have been quoted by Senator Sheehy Skeffington that in 1965-66 the ratio of students to total population in Ireland was one to 201, whereas in Northern Ireland it was only one to 326 and in Great Britain one to 407. In other words, in proportion to population we have twice as many students as they have in Great Britain and, of course, they have to be paid for out of a national income which is very much smaller than it is in Great Britain.

Therefore, while Senator Sheehy Skeffington's figures make an excellent case for requiring that national teachers should be required to do a university degree, they do not necessarily make the case for saying they make good teachers.

The Commission have, over and over again in this Report, stressed the need for vastly better facilities in our universities. Of these the most striking requirement is better staffing, an improvement in the student-staff ratio, which now appears to be around one to 18; some say 20; the figures seem to vary a bit on this. All our universities are understaffed, and the Commission recommend that at the earliest possible moment the ratio should be reduced to one to 12 instead of the present ratio of one to 18 or 20. In this respect I think the comparisons with England that are made by the Commission and also by Senator FitzGerald are unrealistic. The figure in British universities is around five, six, or seven, sometimes fewer, students per member of staff. I do not think it would be necessary for us in this country to aim at that figure. As I have already mentioned, the vast majority of students in British universities are honours students. This type of course requires a heavy concentration of staff on tutorial work and that sort of thing, and it would be unrealistic and unnecessary for us to aim at the staff ratio they have in England.

I was trying to get figures for some of the Continental countries, but I was not able to do so. However, I have figures for American universities which appear to show, on the whole, that they adhere to a figure something like that recommended by the Commission. In fact, a number of well-known American universities come nowhere near this: the University of Houston, which is a big university in Texas, and a very rich one, has as many as 20 students per head of staff; the University of Kansas has 16; New York State University has 15; University of Virginia has 20. There are some which are much better than this. Harvard University has three or four students per head of staff. There are other universities which are much worse than this: Ohio State University, which has 38,000 students, has a ratio as high as one to 35. These are extreme cases, and if we can get down to the ratio of one to 12 this will be in keeping with the general standard in the United States and, I suspect, in keeping with the general standard in other countries. If in future there was a big rise in the numbers taking honours in our universities as compared with the numbers taking pass courses, we should have to think again about the staff ratio, but for the moment the ratio of one to 12 would appear to be adequate for our purposes.

Another obvious point made by the Commission and in many speeches in regard to improved facilities, is that a vast building programme is needed for our universities. There is already a pretty big building programme under way, but what is being done now is no more than coping with the present overcrowding problem. When we visualise, as we must, that in the next ten years or so there will probably be a further doubling of the student population, it is obvious that there must be an enormous programme of building which the Government will have to finance in some way. These two questions of building and staffing are the two most important ones dealt with in the Commission's Report.

Arising out of this question of new buildings, there is one recommendation made in the report in regard to new colleges. I do not know whether anyone has anything to say in favour of these new colleges. Certainly no one in this House has yet done so, and I cannot recollect seeing any statement from anyone at any time which had a good word to say for them. It is difficult to see how the Commission ever came to this rather obscure decision that there should be in Dublin, Limerick, and other places, new colleges which would have a lower standard of entrance than the universities, a smaller range of courses, with no honours courses, and a lower staff-student ratio. After that they say rather innocently that there is no reason why these institutions should be looked on as inferior to the universities. They are not inferior, the Commission says; they are merely different.

I cannot see any point in the suggestion. It is perfectly obvious that no student would go to a new college unless he had already applied and failed to get entry into a university. In the same way, it will not be possible to get first-class people on the teaching staff. Anyone who is good will get a job in a university, and only as a last resort would anyone consider taking up an appointment in a new college. They will be damned from the start as second-class institutions.

There are some who go from here to British universities but they are nothing like the proportion from there that we have in our universities. If the Senator wants to make a point about that, I can see very little justification for Irish students studying for degrees in English universities when they have excellent universities here. I would prefer to see them educated in their own country. I do not propose to pull in any more red herrings. The figure is ten per cent in Belgium; Denmark, two per cent; Finland, 0.4 per cent; Federal Republic of Germany, 7 per cent; Netherlands, 2.7 per cent; Sweden, 4.6 per cent and, by far the highest, Switzerland, 31 per cent. In other words, Trinity College has a vastly higher proportion of foreign students than any of those countries. It is quite an unrealistically large figure which puts a considerable burden on the Irish Exchequer, a burden which would be fully justified if these students came from underdeveloped countries, which is only justified in so far as they come from underdeveloped countries.

It is obvious, therefore, that the existing very high proportion of foreign students entering must be cut and the step that has now been taken by the Board should have been taken long since. It is a realistic step which can reasonably be applicable.

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

Do these students contribute to the intellectual atmosphere as well as to the finances of the college?

Mr. Yeats

They contribute to the non-Irish atmosphere.

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

Most foreigners are non-Irish.

Mr. Yeats

At one time one-half of the students came from outside the country but the figure is now far too high. A figure of ten per cent can be a most invaluable influence from abroad but 37 per cent is simply too high. Even if it were desirable from the point of view of the students as a whole, which I do not accept, it is an extravagance when we are dealing with a difficult situation in our universities with an enormous amount of money being provided each year in order to provide for future expansion.

Acting-Chairman (Mr. Sheldon)

I think I have allowed Senator Sheehy Skeffington to make enough casual remarks.

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

I am sorry, but I am being wildly misrepresented. Anyone reading my speech would see that I paid tribute to University College and I certainly did not——

Acting-Chairman

I am not referring to one particular remark but rather to the running fire of remarks.

Mr. Yeats

I listened fairly carefully to the Senator's speech and read it and the impression I got was by no means in accord with the gloss he now puts on his remarks. He is at least ad idem with Dr. Tierney in that he disapproves of the merger. He produced what I can only describe as some rather unhelpful reminiscences about his various bannings in UCD. I do not see much point in raking up past tribulations like this. That is an activity in which both sides can engage. Senator Sheehy Skeffington mentioned how at this meeting and at that meeting he was banned under rather peculiar circumstances. Looking back to my time in Trinity College when I was Auditor of the College Historical Society I remember how we were forbidden to debate, except in secret, even the most simple and straightforward aspects of Irish Party politics such as the subject “This House Has No Confidence in the Present Government”. These could not be debated in public but they had to be debated in secret with no strangers present. You could not even have a chairman who was not a member of the Society. I can remember going to the Literary and Historical Society in UCD and attending exactly similar debates, some of them a good deal more stormily political than anything we ever had, and I remember hearing them discuss such controversial subjects most vociferously in public. I remember envying that Society the freedom of debate they had at that time. I suspect that Senator Sheehy Skeffington, if he was invited to go to a meeting now, would find that there was little danger of his being banned, just as the rights of debate are considerably freer now in Trinity College than they were 20 years ago.

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

Not only did I speak there last year but I mentioned this in my speech which Senator Yeats said he read.

Mr. Yeats

It was a very long speech and I may have omitted a few pages. If the Senator spoke there last year and was not banned it makes it all the more pointless to raise now what happened many years ago. He can be under no illusions about the present position. I am not sure what actual economy will result from this merger if it takes place, as I hope it will. It is obvious, as Senator FitzGerald and other speakers said, that each college must retain its own identity. It is obvious also that the main range of subjects must exist as heretofore in each of them. The only economies one can really foresee would be in the relatively smaller schools, in fringe activities, and in any new forms of courses which may be introduced. At the same time, I hope the Minister will be fairly firm about cutting out the unnecessary duplication which has taken place. Competition is one thing and competition between two adjacent colleges in regard to maintaining and improving standards can be a good thing, but the creation of courses for purely prestige purposes, as has happened in the past, is quite another matter and there can be no justification for that. At least the merger will cut out some of the unnecessary waste that has taken place.

One of the fears that the academic staff in both colleges have is that there may be redundancy and that people will be cut out as a result of any elimination of duplication which may take place. I do not think that this can happen as obviously there is going to be a vast increase in staff in the years to come and there can be no question of anyone losing the position which he now holds. The only problem will be the question of status and there will have to be very painful decisions taken in regard to who is to be a senior professor in any joint school. This will be a problem and the Minister may have to be fairly firm on some of these matters but I hope there will be no question of eliminating any of the major courses in either university. There must be two completely separate colleges retaining their own identities. Each has a good deal to teach the other.

Dr. Sheehy Skeffington

Hear, hear.

Mr. Yeats

There are one or two relatively minor points dealt with in the report which I hope will not be forgotten amidst the major considerations which must be given not merely to the merger but to the university system as a whole. There are a few institutions such as the National Library and the Museum mentioned and the Report does not deal as fully with them as I would have liked. It recommends a new board of governors to be set up on the grounds, which are justifiable, that the present administrative system is not satisfactory. I hope the Minister will do that and that in setting up the new board he will take a good look at both of these institutions which undoubtedly are understaffed and grossly under-financed.

There is also the question of the National College of Art. No one seems to be satisfied with this institution. It was condemned in the strongest terms in the Scandinavian Design Report and it was also condemned in slightly milder terms in the Report on Design in Ireland. I have never heard anyone, any artist or any person interested in art, who has had anything good to say about this institution. At page 332 of the report it is stated that three things are required for the National College of Art, first of all, a new constitution, then more staff, and thirdly better accommodation. That is a fairly categorical list of requirements and I hope the Minister will not just shelve this matter. Even though it may be a relatively minor matter, I hope he will deal with this problem of the College of Art which has been hanging fire for many years and clearly needs to be dealt with.

Another matter is the position of the Folklore Commission. The Report suggests that it should be associated with UCD. This is reasonable because, as the Report points out, none of the other universities has ever shown much interest in this body. It has received a good deal of help of various kinds from UCD and it should be associated with it rather than left out on a limb. I hope the Minister will accept this and that he will also provide it with the funds it requires in order to publish some of the vast mass of material which it has collected over the years. There are enormous archives of folklore of all kinds and particularly music, which have never been published or even adequately catalogued. Indeed, it is very difficult for people to get in to see them. I hope the Minister will try to produce some scheme for publishing this material and housing it adequately.

This has been a very valuable opportunity for us to discuss the entire university question in addition to the problem of a merger. It is obvious that a revolution is taking place in Irish university education. The enormous and continuing increase in the number of students has brought about a position in which revolutionary steps will have to be taken. I hope and expect that in the coming years the Minister will be able to achieve the many miracles that are required.

Professor Dooge

We are discussing in this debate three motions: Nos. 1, 4 and 7 on the Order Paper. Motion No. 1 is:

That Seanad Éireann is of the opinion that discussions be initiated with a view to securing the co-ordination of university facilities in Dublin.

This is part of a nine-point motion put down by the Fine Gael Party at the end of 1966, following publication of the Fine Gael policy on education. Six of those nine points were discussed in a three-day debate in this House in February, 1967. Two of them have now been further deferred, the two parts of the motion dealing with the questions of financing students and of maintenance grants.

The second motion which we are discussing, No. 4 on the Order Paper, put down by Senators representing the National University of Ireland, notes the issue of a Summary of the Report of the Commission on Higher Education. The third motion which we are discussing, Motion No. 7 on the Order Paper, put down by the Fine Gael Party, notes the publication of the Summary of the Report of the Commission on Higher Education and of Volume 1 of the Commission's Report.

Since Motion No. 1 was put down, expressing the view of the Fine Gael Party that discussions should be held with a view to the co-ordination of university facilities in Dublin, we have had an announcement by the Minister for Education in April of last year to the effect that this matter had been considered by the Government, and that the Government had decided that there should be one university of Dublin to contain two colleges each complementary to the other. As a result of this announcement by the Minister, the discussions asked for in Motion No. 1 have already begun. However, the motion has not been withdrawn. It was left on the Order Paper so that we could discuss this matter—so that Senators can give their views on this most important topic before final and irrevocable decisions are made. It is a matter of urgency that these discussions should continue and conclude.

The scope of this debate is wide indeed because, if we take the ambit of these three motions before us, we have a range of topics covering the co-ordination of university facilities in Dublin, the present system of higher education, the new structure of higher education proposed by the Commission, the question of the proposed new colleges, the various problems of professional education—teaching, medicine, law, technological education and others—and the position of the research institutes. These are all matters which are either pertinent to Motion No. 1 and the Minister's subsequent statement, or are dealt with in Part I of the Commission's Report. Those of us who have views to express on anything which is touched on in Part I of the Commission's Report are in the position in this debate that we must speak now or forever hold our peace. So I can give no comfort to my colleagues that I will be brief in dealing with all the matters which are before us for discussion.

It is, perhaps, as well that we have only had publication to date of Part I of the Commission's Report because if Part II were published we would find ourselves in the position of having to debate as well as the subjects I have mentioned such subjects as the internal administration of the universities, the administration of other institutions of higher education, the appointment of staff, the question of academic standards, the position of Irish in the universities, the financing of higher education, and all the problems in regard to the admission and financing of students. These topics, however, which are dealt with in detail in Part II of the Commission's Report are topics which, perhaps, it is just as well to defer to a later date.

Reading Part I of the Report of the Commission on Higher Education, and endeavouring to select topics which I think are most important, and on which I either hold strong views or feel they are matters on which views should be expressed, I have selected four general topics on which I wish to speak. First, I think it is proper that we should be quite clear in a discussion of this type as to what is the fundamental purpose of higher education and of universities in particular, and in the light of this to review our present situation and ask ourselves how do our universities and other institutions of higher education match up to their purpose.

Secondly, I should like to discuss the proposed new structure for higher education as set out in the Commission's Report, and in connection with that to discuss the Minister's proposal for one university for Dublin, and in particular to discuss the position of Cork and Galway in the light of the proposals made by the Commission and by the Minister.

The third general topic I should like to deal with is the specific proposals contained in Part I of the Commission's Report and in this regard I propose to discuss the question of the New Colleges, and, perhaps, reward the patience of Senator Yeats who has yet to hear someone say a good word for them. I also hope to say something about the specific proposals on technological education. Here my good words may be more sparse.

The fourth point which I should like to bring up is one which I think should be discussed publicly and thoroughly and that is the meaning in the context of the present day of university autonomy and academic freedom, to discuss the question of the degree of accountability which society should ask from these expensive institutions and the amount of public information which should be available.

I have mentioned that it is proper in a debate of this kind that we should be quite clear as to the purpose of higher education. I regret that in the Report the Commission did not deal explicitly or directly with this topic. One finds merely oblique and indirect references to it in Part I of the Report and the summary of Part II does not give us any encouragement that it will be dealt with there in more detail. That is a pity because if we are to plan for higher education we must be clear about our objectives. That is the essential of planning—prior agreement about objectives and a selection of the best means of obtaining them. We should not take anything for granted in regard to the proper objectives for higher education now and in the future. We should re-examine them thoroughly.

Indeed the Commission, if one can judge from their Report, may have taken things a little for granted. Even if the Commission are convinced, the Government are convinced and we are convinced that there is no misunderstanding about the objectives of higher education, it is necessary that these objectives should be spelled out in detail for the general public. There is general agreement that huge sums will have to be spent on higher education in the future, that the public will be asked to meet this expense. Therefore, they have a right to full information on the subject. The issues must be made clear.

In contrast to the lack of direct statement in the Report of our Commission on the objectives of higher education, we find in the corresponding British document, the Robbins Report—or to be more correct the Report of the Committee on Higher Education—there is a whole chapter devoted to aims and principles. The Robbins Report starts out in Chapter I by outlining the terms of reference, the procedure adopted and an outline of the report itself. Following this, in pride of place, comes Chapter II "Aims and Principles". It is a pity our Commission did not do the same and that they did not set out their Report in the same manner. One can find references to the purpose of the university—one finds particularly, between paragraphs 4.12 and 4.15 and, again, in paragraph 4.26, references to the purpose of a university—but many of these are vague and imprecise and do not seem to me to reflect the thoroughness of approach shown in other parts of the Report. If I may quote from the Commission's Report, paragraph 4.15 on page 118 of volume 1 :

The value of higher education for the community is not alone the content of expert knowledge which a modern community requires to have at its service. Irrespective of service to these needs, higher education must be looked upon as a good in itself, as an intrinsic asset that confers a particular benefit on the community as well as on the individual.

The public are entitled to something more than words like these. I quote from the same paragraph:

Further, the opportunity for greater leisure which a developed society derives from continuous technical advance brings with it the need for a more highly educated community which can derive the greatest benefit from that leisure.

It must be made quite clear in any discussion about the revolution in higher education to which we have been referring that this is something more than education for leisure. There is something more concerned in this problem. If we go on to paragraph 4.26 which is headed "View of the University" we still cannot find a clear, realistic explanation of what the Commission's view is in regard to the nature of a university. I shall take one sentence from this to illustrate what I mean. I may be unfair in taking an isolated sentence here and an isolated sentence there, but, nevertheless, I wish to comment on it in order to illustrate my view that at times, in dealing with the question of what is the fundamental objective of the whole of higher education, the Commission were imprecise and at times in grave danger of descending into mere verbiage. The sentence is:

The university is the repository of the highest standards in teaching and scholarship.

That is not what I looked for when I started to read this Report. This wordy description of what a university is is something we could have done without.

The word "repository" in regard to a university struck me as so inappropriate that I looked up its meaning in the dictionary. I found that a "repository" is a vessel, receptacle or chamber in which things are or may be placed, deposited or stored. I do not know if the university Members of the House come into the category of having been placed, deposited or stored in the places they work. I also found the word "repository" can mean a place, room or building in which specimens, curiosities or works of art are collected. Again, I am curious as to how to categorise the university Senators—specimens, curiosities or works of art. There is this idea of a museum and if there is anything which is more remote from what this country wants from its universities during the remainder of this century it is the notion of museums. "Repository" is also defined as a warehouse, a store, a shop or a mart. Small hope here for university autonomy if our universities can be classified as marts and, perhaps, come under the scope of some recent legislation. A "repository" can also be a place where souls are lodged, a description only appropriate to that particular Oxford College, which has survived for centuries without the inconvenient presence of undergraduates. A further meaning is that it is a place in which a dead body is deposited. Again, most inappropriate.

My reaction, my annoyance at the description of the type of institution which I serve, as being a repository, was that it is utterly different from what we are and what we hope to be. Indeed, the word "repository" has another meaning in this country. There are what are described as Catholic repositories, very often places which could not be considered as places in which works of art are stored. I should hate to think that Newman's idea of a university was that it should be anything akin to a Catholic repository.

However, this is playing with words and it is, perhaps, unfair to the Commission, but I make the serious point that it is a great difficulty that we do not have in the Report a clear statement of what the Commission conceive to be the proper objective of a university. Having said this, I put myself in the position of having to give some notion of what my own opinion is of the purpose of a university in this country at this time.

It is not easy to do this precisely but I think we can recognise four general purposes of a university. I think we can recognise that one of the purposes—not necessarily the most important one but one which I may mention first—is that it is a place where is given instruction in certain special intellectual skills. I think a second purpose of a university is that it is a place in which an attempt is made to contribute to the formation of a cultivated mind, a mind well informed and capable of applying knowledge and skill in a general rather than in a specific fashion. Thirdly, I think we must recognise that a university is a place devoted to the advancement of learning. Fourthly, and perhaps particularly in the present century, we must recognise a university is a place that provides society and its students with certain elements of cultural background, using the world culture in its broadest sense. In this regard I think the university must be not only to its students but to society in general a witness of certain long-term values that may otherwise be lost sight of. That then is my notion of the four purposes that the university institutions of this country should serve. I realise that it is inadequate and it is equally open to criticism as the excerpts from the Commission's Report which I myself have criticised.

How do our universities measure up to these particular purposes? How good a job have they done. How good a job are they doing and how long can they continue to give the service they are giving at the moment? Those are the points we must consider. What is the present position in Ireland in university education and higher education generally? The facts are extremely well covered in chapters 1 to 3 of the Commission's Report and are summarised on pages 83 to 87 of that Report. Here we find described a structure of higher education which contains several elements. It contains multi-faculty universities, institutions such as teacher-training colleges, various professional and technical colleges and specialised research institutes. This structure we have at the moment is one which has largely existed for over 50 years. It has been adapted and it has been kept going. I think a situation is revealed by the Commission's Report—it is one known to those of us who work in higher education—that in spite of all the adaptations we are finding it increasingly difficult to maintain international standards. All my colleagues may not agree with this but it is my own view.

We have had, particularly during the last few years, an immense growth in numbers; there was a great increase in demand and the demand has been met. Indeed, the figures which are summarised on page 85 of the Commission's Report—which shows the increase from 1948-9 to 1964-5—are in a way misleading. Anybody who did not look any further than at the summary in those pages would not recognise, I think, the full seriousness of the situation. The table on page 85 covers a period of 16 years over which there has been a substantial increase. If we look over the figures in more detail, we find that over that 16 year period there was no increase in the first or second quarter of the period, a very substantial increase in the third quarter of the period and a doubling of this substantial increase in the fourth quarter. The pace is accelerating. We have had a 50 per cent increase in student numbers in the past five years. The problem is a very real one. In my view, the university institutions cannot keep pace with this increasing demand with existing staff, existing equipment and existing buildings. The time is now here when we need either reform or revolution. We must make up our minds on this and the question at issue is what form will it take.

The Commission, having reviewed the evidence which was presented to it in great detail and at great length, summarised the basic problems of higher education in this country as sixteen in number. These are given by the Commission on page 108 of their Report. If I might be permitted to compress those further I think what emerges is that there are five basic problems which must be faced. First, the problem of the future demand; secondly, the problem of the structure required to meet this future demand; thirdly, the problem of standards in a broad sense; fourthly, the problem of the access of students from all groups in the community to the university and the formation of those students within the university—their education, their training and complete formation. I think here the French word "formation" is probably the best description of what is involved. The fifth main problem is what is the cost and how will it be met? Faced with those basic problems there are certain key decisions that must be made. We must all share in the making of those decisions. While the ultimate responsibility will rest with the Minister for Education and the Government—and with the Houses of the Oireachtas, when legislation is presented—I think we must all, not only the Members of this House but the whole community, do what we can to help in the making of those momentous decisions. It is for this reason that I think the debate we are having over these days can serve a useful civic purpose.

What is the nature of those key decisions? The first decision which must be made by our community in regard to higher education, in regard to the universities in particular, is one of standards. What standards are we going to maintain? On this I have only one thing to say. In respect of our university institutions we have no choice. We hold to international standards or to none. I am happy that the Commission have emphasised this point throughout their Report. When I say that we adhere to international standards this does not mean that we take the highest international standard and try to attain it but there is a generally recognised standard internationally which we must achieve in some way or other though we need not necessarily achieve it in the same way as in other countries.

In regard to the primary degrees in arts and science there is very little difference in the standards which should be our objective in this country and the standards which are the objective in other countries. However, in regard to professional degrees the situation is somewhat different. In many of the countries of Continental Europe the practice is to educate the student to full professional status in an institute of higher education. Thus, to speak only of engineering which I know, the courses in the Technische Hochschulen of the Continent are of six or seven years' duration.

When I say we must hold to international standards I do not mean that we should immediately extend our courses in engineering from four years to six or seven years. What I mean is that we must achieve by one means or another the same degree of professional training. This is done in my own subject of engineering by a four-year university course followed by professional training within the engineering industry which is recognised afterwards by professional interviews held by professional engineering institutions. Therefore, while we do not produce within our universities a complete professional qualification we produce the necessary basis for it. However it is done, we have no option but to hold to general international standards in university education or else go out of business. It is the height of folly to try do anything in between.

I have every confidence that the decision which will be made by the Government on behalf of the community in this regard is that we continue in the future as in the past to hold to international standards. Having made that decision, we then must ask ourselves what will be the demand for higher education; what will be the demand for university education and, knowing the demand, how is it to be met. Recent reforms in education will mean that the numbers qualified and willing to enter higher education will increase and, indeed, a great deal of the discussion in regard to meeting the demand both in the Commission's Report and since its publication has been concerned with the question of how to meet this demand of numbers. However, we have a demand not only of numbers. We have a demand not only of quantity but of quality. We have also a demand that the university should not lose sight of its other purposes in meeting the demands that society should properly ask of it. All of the university institutions acting in concert will have to meet the demands not only to train people both specifically and generally but also to contribute to the advancement of learning and to act as a witness to society.

As was mentioned earlier in the debate by Senator Sheehy Skeffington, we already have in this country a ratio of students to population which is about the same as the European average. We are not behind most of the countries of Europe in the matter of the ratio of students to our population. Yet we are all agreed that many young people capable of benefiting greatly by university education are excluded for economic reasons from our university institutions. If we face these two facts—that we have the same proportionate numbers as they have in other countries and that there are people being deprived of university education—I feel we must come to the conclusion that while we have an average number of students in this country we may not have the right students. When we talk about the demands to be met I feel we have to think not only of those who should be further included within the scope of our university system but we must also think of those who should properly be excluded.

We must face the fact that our entry standards in our universities are at present too low. This point was made by Senator FitzGerald in opening this debate and he drew some letters of protest in the public press on behalf of the students. I feel he was right. I feel the problem is that there are people in our universities who, in the spacious days when universities were private institutions and the fees were paid by private people, had a right to be there. I doubt if in the present age of social purpose, in the present age of State subsidy to the universities these people have anything approaching a right to a place in a university. We must make up our minds on this, however harsh it may be. The Commission has estimated that by 1975 there will be 26,000 people capable of, and anxious for, higher education. Who is to re-fix the entry standard that appears to be at fault? Is this to be fixed by the State or would this be an infringement of university autonomy; if it would be, should university autonomy be allowed to govern the decision of the question? If the matter of entry is to be left to the university, should the State be obliged to pay either directly or indirectly for every student that the university is prepared to admit? This is one of our real problems that we must make up our minds about in the future. This problem was fairly faced in the Policy on Education published by the Fine Gael Party in November, 1966. In this the Fine Gael Party proposed that there should be an independent Universities' Advisory Committee which would advise both the Government and the universities as to what they thought was a proper entry standard on the basis of both academic and social grounds. The purpose of this was that the State would, unless in serious economic difficulties, feel obliged to pay for all students who met this entry requirement but that the university could remain free to admit others who would not meet the standards set by the universities' advisory committee; the university could admit these on payment of an economic fee. This is a decision that must be faced and must be met by the community.

Having satisfied ourselves as to the demand which will be made for higher education in the universities, the next thing that has to be decided is where shall this demand be met. Here, again, we should pause for a moment and ask ourselves a question, if only to dismiss it. There are questions which should not be taken for granted, which should not be just glided over. If there were nothing more to a university than the production of experts, of people with special skills, then we should properly ask the question should this training be given here in Ireland or abroad; would it be better that this extremely expensive training be given abroad to our students? This solution has been adopted by some European countries, particularly in the case of Norway, in regard to certain types of student.

It is when we ask the question as to whether we should be prepared to accept this solution if it proved to be more economic that we realise our universities are something more, that they contribute a great deal more to our community than merely the training of experts. On the other hand, when we answer the question sensibly we must realise that whereas this would be a bad solution to the general problem, it may well be the best solution in particular cases. There may well be some specialist intellectual skills in respect of which the most economic thing, and the best thing from all points of view, would be to send the students abroad. We should remember in regard to post-graduate training for those who will return to this country as leaders and particularly those who return to staff the institutions of higher education, that education abroad is much more valuable than the same academic education taken here at home.

There is no doubt that higher education should be given at home in Ireland but we have then a further supplementary key question which was asked by the Commission and answered in a particular way: where should the demand be made—on the university or elsewhere? The Commission pointed out that 80 per cent of those in higher education here in 1964-65 were being educated in the universities and that by 1975 the proportion would probably be something of the order of 90 per cent. The question must then be asked would this be too much for our present university structure, even with improved financial support and even with the additions to it; the Commission quite frankly thought it would be and they came up with the proposal for the new colleges. Because I hope to discuss later the question of the new colleges and the merits I think are in this proposal, I shall not deal with it now.

If we have decided that we are either to educate almost completely through universities or partly through universities and partly through the new colleges, then we must decide whether the structure we have at the moment is suitable for our purpose. Can we use the existing structure, can we use some modification of it or do we need a completely new departure? Here we must look to the difficulties of our present system and ask ourselves whether the system would be adequate for the type of higher education we want in the future. The Commission have said, and I agree with them, that we need more planning in the sphere of higher education. They have said, and again I agree with them, that we need greater co-ordination in higher education in this country in the future. Of course, we need to face the whole problem, perhaps not so old, but a universal problem which is being faced by every country. Do we wish to harmonise university autonomy and university accountability?

What do the Commission recommend? They recommend that the colleges of the National University of Ireland should become independent universities. They recommend that there should be a council of the Irish universities, they recommend several special institutions, and they recommend a commission for higher education. Are these the answer?

Once the structure is settled we are nearly at the end of the job. The next key decision is: what the nature of these individual institutions should be, what type our universities will be and how will they be governed. If we are to have new colleges, what type should they be? Should they be used in connection with teacher training? If we are to have new special authorities for agriculture and technology what should their nature be? We have also to consider the important problems of the relations of these institutions one with another and their relations with the Government.

The last key question, one of the utmost importance, is how much it will cost and how on earth will we pay for it. The Commission reckoned that between now and 1975 their proposals would cost £25 million in capital sums in respect of higher education. They estimate current expenditure as £7 million per year in 1966-67 and £16 million per year by 1975. These are large sums which must be wisely spent. We must have regard to the fact that the community must know how this money is being spent—that they must know the reasons why the money is being spent.

There is in this country at the moment, as elsewhere, great approval of the idea of spending money on education. Please God, this will last until 1975 and beyond it, but it might not. We have seen in other countries that these waves of enthusiasm for education have spent themselves after a few years and unless all of us who have responsibility in these matters keep the public informed about the essentials of the problems it may well be that the public will not be willing to continue to spend these amounts of money.

This public discussion would be aided greatly if the matter of financing higher education could be related as far as possible to real costs. What I mean by this is that the real cost of what we do should be ascertained. We have a wonderful facility in this country for covering up the real cost of what we do in regard to Government activity. We construct such a maze of subsidies and public grants that at the end it would be material enough for a Ph.D. thesis to find out what was the real cost and the real Government contribution to any particular enterprise. This is bad. We can only control enterprises like the spending of these sums on education if we know the real cost.

It is for this reason that in the policy on education the Fine Gael Party put forward certain proposals that, rather than rely as in the past on block grants to the universities, in regard to undergraduate education there should be an economic fee and that the Government grant should be made not to the university but rather to the student. There is real merit in using this sort of approach in order to set up this whole enterprise—which we are all agreed upon—in such a fashion that we will know in quantitive and real terms where the money is coming from, where it is going to and what it is doing.

These then are the key decisions which, as I have already said, have got to be made by the Government and the Houses of the Oireachtas on behalf of the community. In this debate we have already been, and I think before we conclude, we will further be of assistance to the Government and to the community in the public discussion of these problems.

There are four topics on which I have views I would like to express for the benefit of the Minister and of the public in regard to the detetmination of these key decisions. The first topic I should like to discuss is the general structure of university education as proposed by the Commission, the proposal of the Minister for one university in Dublin and, in particular, the position of Cork and Galway under both of these proposals. The second topic I should like to take up, because I think it is one that must be discussed rather than merely dismissed, is the question of the new colleges. Are they required? What is their function? Are the details which have been proposed by the Commission acceptable? The third question I should like to talk about is that of technological education, in which I naturally have some interest. The fourth is the question of university autonomy, academic freedom and accountability.

The Commission have proposed a new university structure. At the moment we have a structure that consists largely of the three colleges of the National University and Trinity College, Dublin—four relatively large university institutions all of which deal separately with the Government and with individual Departments. The Commission have proposed that we have a change in regard to this. It has been proposed in particular that the National University of Ireland should be dissolved. It is important to realise what it says in this regard and accordingly I quote from paragraph 15.43 on page 418 of the Commission's report:

Our recommendation in regard to the National University of Ireland is, therefore, that it should be dissolved and that its three constituent colleges should be established as independent universities, subject to explicit guarantees to the Cork and Galway colleges for their development, endowment and staffing.

Later, in page 419, the Commission emphasise that this is a positive recommendation. In paragraph 15.45 they recommend as the first positive advantage of this:

Firstly, all our university colleges would be enabled to achieve equal status and this would be an essential first step in evolving new forms of co-ordination and co-operation between them.

Naturally, I have an interest in what is proposed in this regard, being a graduate of the National University of Ireland, having studied at UCD some 25 years ago and having been a member of the staff of UCC for 9½ years. One is naturally sorry to see the institution in which one studied when young disappear but, nevertheless, I am quite convinced by what the Commission have said and by the facts of the situation. I commend the proposal for the dissolution of the National University of Ireland. This is my personal opinion but I believe that this opinion is shared by the majority of the staffs and of the students and graduates of the colleges of the National University. When the Commission was set up in 1960 this was not necessarily true. At that time a large number of the staff, and, perhaps a majority in the colleges in Cork and Galway, were in favour of the retention of the federal system. I believe— this can only be a personal impression —that now, after the Commission's report in 1967, the majority of the academic staff in the colleges in Cork and Galway are in favour of independence and they welcome it positively. But they welcome not independence just taken solus like that; they welcome independence as recommended by the Commission on Higher Education, that is, they accept independence gladly on the terms the Commission have recommended. I have quoted what the Commission have said. They have talked of explicit guarantees. We welcome independence, but we welcome more than independence itself the explicit guarantees which we hope to have. The Commission have also recommended the dissolution on the basis that the new institutions in university life in Ireland will be equal in status. We welcome independence on the basis of equality of status. I believe the position is—it is certainly my personal position—that we positively and enthusiastically welcome the chance which would be given us if we were to be established as independent universities, but we do wish to see it in the context in which it appears in the Commission's Report.

What are the essential elements that would be in the type of system which we would like to see? First, we would like to see the Council of Irish Universities based on equality of status which is proposed in chapter 17 of the Commission's report. Here, again, I would like to give a short quotation from paragraph 17.9, page 459. Speaking of the council of Irish universities here it says:

Each university in the Council would have an equal voice in its affairs.

This is the Commission's recommendation and this we believe should be a feature of any new system. Perhaps one should ask as a footnote how this is affected by the Minister's proposal of one university in Dublin and whether in fact, one would then have a Council of Irish Universities in which Dublin would have one voice, Cork one voice and Galway one voice I am not sure. Nevertheless, in the context of the Commission's Report there is this clear expression of opinion that the Council of Irish Universities is a council of equality with no attempt to establish a council which will be proportional to student numbers. We welcome that.

In regard to the Commission for Higher Education or similar body recommended by the Commission in chapter 18, this, again, is something which will be welcomed by my colleagues in University College, Cork and by my confréres in University College, Galway. It is an essential part of what the Commission is recommending and it should be an essential part of the explicit guarantees which should be given to Cork and Galway under the new structure to be set up.

A third recommendation of the Commission which I think is essential to the proper working of a new system in which Cork and Galway would be independent universities is that for an academic governing body which is described in the summary of chapter 21. Essential also, no matter what the structure, is a satisfactory method of appointment and proper conditions of service, matters that are referred to in the summary of chapter 23.

These, then, are the things which we would hope we would find in any proposed new structure for university education in this country. Perhaps we should look a little more closely to see what they mean. I have mentioned the question of equality of status. What do we mean here by equality of status? Under what conditions could it be fairly said that Cork and Galway were getting equality of status and under what conditions could it be fairly said that they were being denied equality of status even though given independence? If Cork and Galway are to have equality of status with either one or two institutions in Dublin certain things must be given to them, certain guarantees and a certain form of development for each of these colleges. Of course, to be universities in any sense they must be multi-faculty universities and must have a broad arts and science curriculum coverage, including post-graduate work. If there is any attempt to restrict post-graduate work in Cork and Galway to merely a few areas then this would, indeed, introduce an inequality of status among the university institutions in Ireland.

Looking at the past history and present state of our institutions here, I think it is fair to say that if Cork and Galway are to have equality of status in the future they should be allowed to retain in each case at least two professional schools. Unless this is done they would not be universities in the same sense as UCD and TCD would be universities or in which a new University of Dublin would be a university. We can go a little further than this. I do not think that it would be giving equality of status to Cork and Galway if we allowed them merely to do what is already being done in Dublin and this is an important point. If you do in Cork and Galway, on a smaller scale, merely those things which are already being done on a larger scale in Dublin, then this diminishes their equality of status. Cork and Galway should be allowed to develop specialities so that, in fact, there would be—at the very minimum at post-graduate level—studies in Cork and studies in Galway not available in the Dublin institutions. In fact, the best guarantee of equality of status, the best guarantee of counteracting their smaller size would be that there should be made available in Cork and Galway at least one degree, whether graduate or post-graduate, which is available only in that particular institution.

In regard to the Council of Irish Universities which the Commission have recommended, the recommendation is that this body should control minimum entrance and degree standards, that it should make arrangements for extern examining, the transfer of students for the exchange of information and policy development and research and that it should make arrangements for studentships and fellowships. This is a wholly admirable proposal. In the future of our university institutions we need a Council of Irish Universities because we need a common purpose, we need to do several things in concert and we need, above all, to work together. The greatest value from the Council of Irish Universities will come, not from questions like minimum standards which will be easily fixed, or the question of transfer of students, but from the exchange of information and from the various things which are not mandatory powers of the Council of Irish Universities but its advisory powers. Here we can get a real centre from which will come a great deal of the enthusiasm and initiative for doing the job that society in this country is going to ask of the universities. I welcome, and I think I interpret my colleagues' minds correctly in saying that they welcome, this proposal as I welcome—and I think the welcome is shared again by my colleagues—the proposal to form a Commission for Higher Education in this country, a commission that would be responsible for university grants, for planning and for inquiry.

Indeed, I have said already that I believe that what we need in higher education in this country is more planning and more co-ordination. The body which has been recommended by the Commission is a suitable body for this purpose. We need a body which can stand between the university institutions and the Government, not because they are fighting dogs that need to be separated but because it is necessary to have a body which is concerned neither with the day-to-day problems of the Department of Education nor the special interests of the universities. The experiment of the University Grants Committee in Britain has been a notable success and it has been copied throughout the world.

This, then, is the structure that the Commission have proposed—the dissolution of the National University of Ireland, the setting up of a Council of Irish Universities and the setting up of a Commission for Higher Education. I think the structure is a good one and is one indeed, which will serve us for many years to come. As I said in the beginning, one cannot help having a twinge of regret about the passing of the National University of Ireland but the dissolution of NUI should not be considered as some sort of academic divorce but rather as a sign of maturity, of coming of age.

The confidence which I have in the proposed new universities for Cork and Galway is only possible because of the work that has been done under the National University of Ireland system over the past 60 years.

I have talked so far of the Commission's proposals for a new structure, but all our thinking in regard to this, of course, must be modified in view of the Minister's proposal in relation to the University of Dublin made in April of last year. This proposal which the Minister made is central to the problem of our new structure. What the Minister proposed, and I quote from his statement which is reprinted in Studies for Summer, 1967, is as follows:

For the reasons I have given, however, the Government considers that the public interest demands the establishment of a formal relationship between the two Dublin Colleges. The Government has accordingly authorized me to announce that it is their intention to proceed on the lines of my proposals of December last. These proposals were framed on the basis of there being one University of Dublin, to contain two Colleges, each complementary to the other.

The two Colleges would be founded on the two existing institutions, University College and Trinity College. One University in Dublin would involve one University authority, statutorily established on a democratic basis, with a subsidiary authority, similarly constituted, for each of the two Colleges. In the matter of the identity of each college, the feeling of the existing authorities will be given the utmost weight.

This proposal has certainly given us all food for thought and food for debate in this discussion. In the Fine Gael policy published the previous November we had urged that there should be the closest possible co-ordination between the two institutions in Dublin, and had proposed that this could perhaps be done by a university advisory authority. The Minister has gone further than this and said that co-ordination is not enough.

There are many merits in what the Minister has proposed. There are many academic and some economic advantages, but my own instinct, in the absence of a statement such as this from the Minister, would have been for two separate institutions as proposed by the Commission. This would have been my instinct, two separate institutions closely co-ordinated to avoid duplication and to take advantage of specialisation.

Why do I take this view and why do I characterise it as being instinctive? I think it is because I am afraid of the size of what the unified institution would be. I worked, quite some time ago now, for two years in a university which had 10,000 students and was still livable in as a university, but I could not help feeling that it was pretty close to the limit. We must face this problem of size, as Senator Yeats mentioned earlier and Senator Stanford mentioned in the debate on the last day. We must face the fact that we shall have one large university in Dublin, whether there be amalgamation or not. The question is, should we make it larger?

I do not see any intrinsic objection to having more than one university in a city. In the summer before last I spent three months in Australia and visited most of the university institutions. The situation there is that Australia is now renewing its whole university system. It had the Murray Committee, which reported, and they have had in Australia during the past five years or so the revivification which we look for in the future.

The situation in Australia when I visited it was: two universities in Sydney; two universities in Melbourne; two universities in Adelaide; a third university under construction in Sydney and a third university under construction in Melbourne. They faced the problem that we face. Granted their cities are, in the case of Sydney and Melbourne, somewhat larger than Dublin, but they faced their problem, and their solution was, no objection to two universities, no objection to three universities in the one city.

We look to Glasgow; we look to Manchester. We find that this solution of more than one university in a city has been accepted and appears to be a reasonable solution. It may be easy to say that it is ridiculous to have more than one university in a city, but I do not think this can be sustained. I do not think you can say that in a city the size of Dublin there should be only one university. I think the reason why there is not a multiplicity of universities in larger cities is that they find it impossible to divide the existing unitary institutions that they have. Therefore, as I say, having no intrinsic objection to more than one university, I am worried about the question of size.

The larger universities in the United States have been facing this problem. Berkeley has been mentioned several times in this connection. The University of California has over the past few years promoted a deliberate policy of building up the smaller campuses at the expense of the larger university institutions. They have recognised the danger and have tried to reverse the process. We, if we go towards amalgamation, may well accelerate it.

Having said that, I do recognise that there are cogent arguments for a union. While I certainly would never, in the absence of a declaration, have come forward in favour of such a union, now faced with a firm Government decision I find it difficult to decide whether my qualms in regard to its advisability are such that I would argue for the reversal of the Government decision. When we are faced with this decision, then I suppose what we should discuss, if some amalgamation is to take place, is what sort should it be.

On this point we must be quite clear and specific. If the Minister is going to have one University of Dublin with two constituent institutions, both must be genuine university institutions. This does not mean they must both be universities. This is not what I intend, but that both must be genuine university institutions so that a person who spends most or all of his time in one or the other will be in a proper university environment.

Trinity College, Dublin, at the present day is representative of a great deal of what is good and a great deal of the best of the Anglo-Irish tradition, and we must say unhesitatingly that Trinity College, Dublin, should not be liquidated either directly or indirectly, even if there were apparently compelling arguments on the grounds of economy that it should be done. I hold this view strongly and I believe this view is shared by the majority of the academic community in the country outside Trinity College. I think this should be quite clear. It is no use going back and recounting what the history of Trinity College has been. We must, I think, look at the College today. We are talking now of founding a new university system. The Minister has approached this problem in the spirit in which we would have hoped he would approach it. He hopes to found university institutions which will be the centres of enlightenment for a pluralist society. He mentioned in his statement that he wants to see a new University of Dublin which will be neither denominational or non-denominational but multi-denominational.

We must, I think, recognise that here we have not just one single cultural tradition. The Irish people are a mixture and there are many strands that go to make up our character and to make up the culture we have inherited. One of these strands is the Anglo-Irish tradition. The Anglo-Irish tradition is well represented, I think, by Trinity College, Dublin, and I do not think any reorganisation of facilities in Dublin should, as I have said, either directly or indirectly seek to extinguish this particular institution. Unfortunately some of the suggestions we have heard seem to move in that direction. We have heard the suggestion that there should be arts and sciences in the wide open spaces of Belfield and the smaller professional schools concentrated in College Green. This, to my mind, would be an unacceptable solution, unacceptable because neither of these institutions in such circumstances would be a true university institution and because this would, in fact, result not only in the liquidation of Trinity College but also in the liquidation of University College, Dublin, and the tradition for which it stands. The institution at Belfield dealing only with arts and sciences would not be the University College, Dublin, which we have known for the past 60 years.

No matter what shortsighted people may think, it would be miles away from the ideal of a university suggested by Newman, and which is the tradition to which UCD clings, and rightly so. Newman was a great protagonist of the liberal university but Newman was not so shortsighted as to believe that a liberal university was a university that studied only liberal subjects. Newman's whole thesis is that a liberal university is one that studies subjects in a liberal way. Newman's experiment in the university he tried to found here in Dublin was a shortlived one and we should not be deceived by looking at what was done during those few short years. Newman did not believe in a university of only arts and sciences. There are in existence Newman's proposals for founding in the 1840s a school of engineering within the Catholic University in Dublin. Newman is quite clear both in his published work and in his private papers that a university is incomplete without some disciplines outside the liberal arts and pure sciences.

A new university institution at Belfield founded only on arts and sciences would not be UCD as we know it. It would certainly become a huge organisation. It would certainly do splendid work, but it would become as formless and academically unattractive as a giant squid. It would not be a true university institution. If, at the same time, we sent to College Green all the professional schools presently associated with either of the two institutions in Dublin, with neither arts nor science, this would not be TCD as we know it. Only the site would survive. We would have here a movement towards the separation of the professional schools from the arts and sciences and this, too, would be wrong. Many people argue that, if one looks to the Continent, one sees the separation between the universities and the professional schools, particularly the Technische Hochschulen. Current academic opinion in Germany and the other continental countries is that this separation is a mistake and, starting today, this separation would not be allowed.

As I say, I myself feel very doubtful about the advisability of a single university for Dublin. I think it would be more advisable to allow the two independent institutions to work, for a time at least, under the co-ordination of the proposed Council of Irish Universities rather than have this immediate union. But, if union there is to be, then we must be quite clear that we cannot have any of this arbitrary division. Such a division would bring a solution which would result in two institutions neither of which would be worthy to be called component parts of a university. However, this is a matter for discussion. This is a matter for those more closely concerned to express their opinion on, but I want to ask in regard to this matter what would be the effect of this proposal on Cork and Galway. If there is one university in Dublin, there would be quite natural fears in Cork and Galway that this unity would give a concentration of finance, a concentration of research and a concentration of influence in Dublin which might be detrimental to the new university institutions in both Cork and Galway. Nevertheless, if this decision is to be made, it is not for Cork and Galway to say that what is otherwise desirable should not be done in order to calm their fears. It would, however, make it all the more necessary, I think, to honour the explicit guarantees to which the Commission refers. It would make it all the more necessary that the Council of Irish Universities should be based on equality of status between the institutions and the Commission on Higher Education should be so constituted as to ensure that it does not suffer from myopia, sitting in Dublin and favouring Dublin to the exclusion of Galway and Cork because of inability to see beyond the Pale as far as Galway and Cork. There might well be fears of a Dublin-based commission of people, worthy people, who had made their mark in the life of the country but who had gravitated, as most such people do sooner or later, to Dublin. I do not bring this forward with the idea that there should be direct representation of Cork and Galway on such a commission. I think it would be extremely bad, but the matter is one which would have to be watched.

The next main topic I should like to touch on is the question of the New Colleges. Senator Yeats said earlier that he did not hear anyone say a good word for this proposal by the Commission. I propose to say a few now. The Commission devotes Chapter 5 of its Report to the question of the New College. This proposal has been very badly received. I think part of this has been due to the unfortunate circumstance of the publication of the summary ahead of the main Report. I know my own immediate reaction on reading Chapter 5 of the summary was to dismiss completely and absolutely the question of the New College as crazy and misguided. I thought there was nothing which could be said in its favour. However, I submit that we must not merely be content with looking at the summary of this proposal but we must judge the proposal as set out in full detail in Chapter 5 of the Report itself. If we read this with an open mind we will realise, while many details of what are proposed here are objectionable, that in fact the proposal is worthy of discussion and worthy of consideration. I think it should be given a chance and I think we should discuss as thoroughly as possible the whole question of the New Colleges. They have been dismissed in this debate. No one has a good word for them. They have been referred to as second-class colleges run by second-class professors with second-class minds. There is no need for this to happen if we look at the proposal as made. Perhaps we would just recall what the Commission has proposed. I quote from page 95 of the summary of the Report on Higher Education: conclusion 14 reads:

To meet part of the expanding demand for higher education, to cater for it in new ways, and to provide a focus of intellectual and cultural life in new centres, a new type of institution—the New College —should be established, initially in Dublin and Limerick, and later in other centres. It would award a bachelor's degree after a full three-year course or its equivalent, and diplomas for a variety of courses of shorter duration.

The further details which are in the main body of the Report spell out what type this college should be in the opinion of the Commission. It should be a type based on humanistic and scientific status with an entry standard of 50 per cent in two subjects in the Leaving Certificate; the teaching within it should be small group teaching; teacher training should be associated with it and there should be a system of extern examiners.

As produced and proposed even in the full Report, I do not agree with the proposal of the Commission. However, I think it might be possible to adapt this notion of the Commission, to remove certain features from it, to modify other features and to come up with a proposal for a new type of institution which would serve a useful purpose in our system of higher education. Academics have been particularly severe in dismissing this proposal, saying that this is a proposal for a cutrate university, that it is something which should not be tolerated and that it is also a lowering of standards. In fact, the Commission have proposed it to preserve standards. The Commission's viewpoint is that if we try to put the whole load on university institutions, serving the additional purposes of a university in accordance with international standards, the university may not be equal to the strain and they propose to divert a certain load of higher education away from the universities and in this way not to lower standards but to distinguish between standards and to save the standards of the universities.

I think perhaps they were unduly sensitive in the text of their Report in stressing that this was just a different type of education and that really there was not so much difference between this and university education. Of course there is a difference. That should be clearly and absolutely recognised. The difference between the two might become even greater. I agree with Senators who said that there must be a real increase in the entry standards in the universities. This will open up a gap between those who currently can enter a university and those who will come in under the new system. If we move to a three-year Leaving Certificate course, we may look for honours in a three-year Leaving Certificate for entry to the university, and if this were so there would be a real gap between entry to the new colleges and entry to the universities. This should be recognised. It was not recognised by the Commission; they fuzzed it over. This is evident most of all in their suggestion that teacher training should be linked to the new colleges and that there should be easy transfer from one institution to the other. That there should be transfer from one to the other is highly desirable, but that it should be the normal or usual thing I do not think is desirable.

For example, in regard to teachers they suggest that a teacher should go to a training college that would be associated with the new college and that then when he had finished his teacher training and his work in a teacher college he should afterwards go on to the university.

This is a proposal which must be rejected immediately. Senator Brosnahan submitted earlier facts on the standard of the present entrants to the training college. It is well above what is proposed for the new college and is well above what is proposed in the future even in the universities. To take the person who is capable of going straight to the university and send him to the new college for a few years and then to the university is something which I think is destructive of the person's intellect and which I think would be highly wrong. You might find if you did this to a person diverted to another educational stream —a stream intended only for people far below his capabilities—that the odds are when he did come to the university his intellect would be so rusty he would tend to do badly in a university course, whereas if he had gone there initially he would have been all right. This proposal is very ill-conceived.

There is another thing about new colleges which has not been thoroughly worked out. In paragraph 5.6 on page 128 in regard to the new colleges the proposal is in regard to the teaching and I quote:

The emphasis in the New College would be on tutorial work rather than lecturing. The students would receive teaching in small groups consisting of not more than 20, and there would be a high element of teacher/student contact.

On the next page, page 129, the Commission deal with the matter of staffing and again I quote:

The academic staff strength of the College may be expressed as a staff/ student ratio of 1 to 20.

I think these two things are completely incompatible. If there is to be any choice of subject and teaching in groups which are always smaller than 20 and a staff/student ratio of 1 to 20, this is only possible if the number of contact hours of the teachers exceed to a considerable extent the contact hours of the students. There is an incompatibility here and there has been a failure to work out this system in any detail. It is not clear at all what the nature of the teaching would be.

The proposal in regard to the new colleges is that after three years' full time study a person who has completed a course in a new college would receive a bachelor's degree. Because their work is different from what is done in the universities the proposal is also made that the primary degree in Arts and Science in the university should be a Master's degree rather than a Bachelor's Degree. I think this is most unwise. The only result of giving a Bachelor's Degree from the new college and a Master's Degree from the university institutions would be to establish the position internationally that no Irish degree means what it says. The suggestion is that we are to have extern examiners. Are these extern examiners to be from within the country or without? If they are to be from outside the country we will have to take them aside and carefully explain to them, "now what we mean by a Bachelor's Degree in a new college is not really a Bachelor's Degree and what we mean in the university by a Master's Degree is not really a Master's Degree." This would be fatal. We would lose our standing internationally if we attempted to depart from the normal usage in regard to these terms. If you undervalue a degree, if you call something that is really a Bachelor's Degree a Master's Degree, your international credit is nil. Actually you can do the reverse and your credit may well go up.

It has been said in the Report that these degrees would gain their normal stature depending on the excellence of the work done. I see no reason why the new colleges should not give diplomas, and if the work done is of the standard of past degrees they will be recognised. We had in this country diplomas or Associateship of the Royal College of Science of Ireland which were recognised, because of the work done, as being equivalent to a university degree. We can go to England and find the same. When a man has got a B.Litt, from Oxford we do not think of this of being equivalent to a B.A. in English from any ordinary university. It happens to be a Bachelor's Degree, but we all know what its standing is. On the science side, a person will proudly put after his name D.I.C., Diploma of the Imperial College. This means he has obtained from the Imperial College of Science and Technology, one of the foremost units of the University of London, a qualification which anywhere else would be a Master's Degree. It is utterly foolish to play around with the idea of giving, in institutions which are not of university standing, a degree which is the international badge of completion of a primary university course. We would be getting both our new colleges and our universities into trouble.

These are serious objections but nevertheless as I have said there is something in this proposal. If we are to try to handle 90 per cent or more of those seeking higher education in the universities in 1975 this may inhibit the universities from maintaining their standards. The new colleges could help to deal with those who would only find themselves frustrated with a university which is pushing up standards. The new colleges could help in the sphere of higher education but this experiment will only be successful if a clear distinction between the function of new colleges and the universities is made. When this distinction is made clear, it must then follow that the new colleges should not normally be a stepping stone to the university, either for an individual or for the institution. Their functions would be separate. Senator Alton mentioned this point. We might well set up academies giving diplomas which could do most of what the Commission had proposed for some of the new colleges. Professor Yeats mentioned—I am sorry for the unwitting conferring——

Tomás Ó Maoláin

Coming events cast their shadows.

Professor Dooge

Senator Yeats mentioned that it would be impossible to get staff of proper standing for the new colleges and I would say that in the past I would have tended to agree with him. Last summer when I was in the United States I was visiting the University of Cornell and I met there a young man with whose research work I was familiar. I asked him why was he away from California and he told me: "I do not work in an institute that does research but in a teaching college, in what is almost in effect a junior college, and my situation is that when I am in that institute I am teaching all the time but I have a most generous sabbatical leave arrangement." His situation is that instead of being a person whose teaching and research is done in the same institute, as it were in alternative fashion, he spent two or three years teaching full-time and then got a full year for research work in a larger institution. This is the sort of device that could be used in the new colleges in order to attract staff of the highest standing. People would be willing to serve in the new college on the basis of attractive conditions of work and generous sabbatical leave. In regard, then, to the new colleges they should not be dismissed out of hand: there should be a full and proper discussion on them.

There are two more topics on which I should like to touch. The first is technological education in which I claim a certain competence, and the other is the question of university autonomy which is something that merits discussion. Chapters 6 to 12 of the Commission's Report deal with professional education of one type or another. I regret to say that I find three of these quite unsatisfactory in their main recommendations. Chapter 7 deals with the question of agricultural and veterinary medicine and the proposal here is that we should set up a new national college which should carry out research and teaching in both agriculture and veterinary medicine. Now, apart from the question of severing the link between veterinary medicine and medicine, to which Senator Alton referred, there are serious objections to this. I do not think it is too much of a simplification to say that what has happened in this case is as follows: that research has been removed from the universities to a separate institute and then when the research has been moved—after it has been moved but not before—the sacred principle of not separating teaching and research is invoked. The result is that having taken research out of the university it is now necessary to take teaching out of the university. I think that this late tying of the knot between research and teaching, which is inherent in the arguments in this Report, cannot stand up to examination. There is room in this country for institutional research in agriculture but there is room also for university research to a greater extent than we have had. There is room for work both by the universities and by An Foras Talúntais in this particular field. Since, however, it is not my field I do not intend to deal with it in detail.

In Chapter 9 the Commission deals with the question of teacher training and it recommends that teacher training should be associated with new colleges. I have already referred to this point. This is most unwise. We must have professional training of teachers which will go on in institutions like the training colleges but our teaching profession, which we all hope will be a unified profession at some time in the future, should be associated with the universities, should be linked with them in some way.

Chapter 8 deals with the question of technological education. Most of the chapters of the Commission's Report—practically all of them—have at the end a summary or a conclusion or in some way a drawing together of what has been talked of in the chapter, but at the end of Chapter 8 on Technological Education there is no summary. That is also true of Chapter 5 dealing with the new colleges. It is perhaps symptomatic that in these two cases to which there are serious objections the Commission were unable to summarise their views.

In regard to technological education I think there is quite some confusion over the terminology. In a sense one cannot blame the Commission for this. This is a most confused area. Nevertheless they were warned because if I may be permitted to read the first two sentences of my own evidence to the Commission they were as follows:

The difficulties of discussing problems relating to the education of scientists and technologists have been aggravated by a great amount of confusion in the terminology used by different writers on the subject. Any attempts to examine the problem in Ireland must be preceded by the adoption of certain standard definitions to be used throughout.

In Chapter 8 the Commission attempted in the opening paragraphs to define what they mean by technology, but unfortunately they did not stick to that definition throughout their discussions. I do not think there is any need for me to quote it but they emphasise in their definition that a technologist is something more than a graduate in engineering or science, someone who has been trained beyond this to apply his special knowledge to the problems of productive industry. Unfortunately they do not indicate exactly the extent to which he has been trained. They do not distinguish between a person who has done a two-month special course on a highly specialised process and a person who has satisfied a professional institution that he has three years' experience in professional work. There is no distinction, as I say, between general and special technological training.

The main discussion in this chapter deals with the special needs of special industries. I do not want to delay the House very much longer. I am quite aware that I have already spoken beyond what might be considered desirable, but there are a few points I should like to make in regard to this matter. If we are considering the special needs of special industries there are several ways in which they could be met. These have been discussed in the Commission's Report. The special needs of special industries in regard to technological training could be met first by sending people for training abroad. Secondly, they could be met by special courses within industry. Thirdly, they could be met by special courses arranged in co-operation with existing engineering or science schools. Fourthly, they could be met by the formation of a special technological institute. The Commission discussed these various approaches but apparently thought they had to choose between them as if they were in some way mutually exclusive. That is quite wrong.

What is needed in this respect is a flexible policy in regard to technological training. In one case the best thing might be to send the person abroad, in another to train him within industry, and in a third case to have a course specially organised by an existing educational institution. The Commission went on further to talk of the idea of new technological institutes which would embrace the existing Institute for Industrial Research and Standards, which would, besides carrying out the industrial research and service and information work done at present by the Institute for Industrial Research and Standards, carry out or organise technological education and training.

I do not think they proved their case. I do not think there is a need for anything in this regard other than that some responsibility should be exercised in regard to technological training in order to ensure that it is being done somewhere in the country or abroad. I do not think the case has been proved for the setting up of a vastly expanded organisation which would embrace the Institute of Industrial Research and Standards and would carry out these additional functions. I understand that a recent report on the work of the Institute for Industrial Research and Standards has indicated that the Institute might be more effective if the rate of expansion of its activities were kept to a certain limit. I think it would be most inadvisable to set up a new institute purely for the purpose of giving training which may be necessary to those who have received basic training in engineering or science schools and who need particular training for industry.

The final topic I wish to discuss is that of university autonomy and academic freedom. It was my intention to discuss this, but even if it had not been, I think it would have been necessary to do so in view of the fact that the Minister singled this out as an important point in a speech, reported in this morning's Press, which he made in the presence of the members of the Commission. In this regard I want to emphasise once again that this is a point on which there should be the fullest public discussion. Again I have to criticise the Commission for the fact that they did not deal explicitly and directly with this problem in Part I of their Report. Indeed, they devoted only one paragraph to the question of self-government of institutions. This appears at page 473 and here the Commission say:

We do not consider it necessary to enter into a discussion of the philosophy underlying the concept of university autonomy, for it is not a point that is at issue.

Later in the same paragraph they say:

While we accept the principle of self-government for institutions of higher education, we recognise—as, indeed, do the institutions themselves—that the principle is not absolute. Institutional autonomy must obviously be subject to limitation, particularly where the institutions have to rely largely on subventions from public funds.

This is something that is agreed. This is something on which the Commission were clear. This is something on which the people in the universities are clear. Is it something on which the general public are clear? Do the general public know what academics mean when they talk about academic freedom, or what is meant when university autonomy is mentioned? I do not think they do and I think it is important that they should.

In this regard there is at the moment no difference of opinion so far as I can see between the Commission, the Minister and the Government, and the universities and their staffs. A difference of opinion might arise in the future and if it did it would certainly be in the interests of the universities if the public understood what they meant when they talked of this question of academic freedom. This informed public opinion is ultimately the only real bulwark for these things which seem so important to university people. Why do these seem important to university people? Are they merely some outdated ideas left over from the days of private institutions? Is university autonomy compatible at all with accountability to the State for the large sums which it makes available? Is autonomy necessary or desirable? Is it relevant today when the universities receive these huge grants in order to serve a social purpose? These are questions that should be discussed. I have every confidence that when they are discussed in public the public will appreciate the points at issue.

When we begin to talk about academic freedom we find there are two types of it. This was made quite clear in what the Minister had to say last night. There is personal academic freedom and institutional academic freedom. Where does the idea come from? Why is this something on which academics are so insistent? Why is it something that they believe is part and parcel of universities? Why do they hold the opinion that if academic freedom did not exist they could no longer remain in the university? This should be understood because it is the position. It has happened in many countries that academic freedom has been infringed and the staffs have found they cannot work in these conditions. Many of them leave academic life altogether rather than suffer within the university restraints which they afterwards accept outside the university.

Academic freedom in the sense in which we speak of it today is a relatively new concept. It is something that has grown up with the modern universities. What are its elements? I think if we want to understand why academic people think in this fashion we must realise their thinking in regard to their own institution and its relation to the State is part and parcel of their general approach to any problem which they must face. I can quote from two authors, Hofstader and Metzger, who discuss this point. They say that academic freedom is a composite concept and it takes from modern science the notion of a continuing search for new truths, fostered by freedom of enquiry, verified by objective processes and judged by those who are competent; from commerce the concept of a free competition among ideas—hence the suggestive metaphor of a free market in thought; from the politics of a liberal state the idea of free speech and a free press and appreciation of the multitudes of perspectives in a pluralistic society; from religious liberalism and the long historical development which led to the taming of the sectarian animus, the ideas of toleration and religious liberty.

This is the way academics think about their problems. Why do they ask the community to agree with them that they should have certain freedoms over and above those they have as citizens? The only justification they can give in this modern age is that if they are given these freedoms in their institutions they will be more effective teachers. The only possible justification in asking for academic freedom is not to make themselves happier but to make their work more efficient. It is the consensus of opinion in western society that this is so whether we view universities as teaching institutions, as forming potential leaders or as a witness to society for permanent values; given academic freedom they will do a better job. This does not mean they want to be completely free. It certainly does not mean that the academics are not willing to be accountable for the results of their activities to society as a whole. It does not mean that they are not prepared to be responsive to argument, to be influenced by considerations put forward by the State but that they will be firm against an excessive zeal for control that would destroy the spirit if not the form of the institutions which they serve.

Of these two types I think there is less difficulty about the problems of personal academic freedom. This is something more than the free rights of a citizen which are the rights of everybody. The academic, besides his rights as a citizen, looks for certain rights in the manner of his employment. He looks not only for freedom from discrimination on the usual grounds but he asks for several other things. He asks for the freedom to teach freely what he believes to be true. He asks for the right to seek truth by study and research by the methods which at the moment seem most appropriate to him. He seeks the right to publish his conclusions no matter who is hurt by his published work. This, of course, does not include the right to do just what he pleases and in no sense involves a right to refuse to take his fair share of the burden of the work of his institution but it is a refusal to allow his conscience to be commanded either by his institution or by the State. I think politicians should be sympathetic to this point of view because it echoes in a way the famous words of Edmund Burke who, in speaking to the electors of Bristol, said in effect: you can command my services but not my conscience. Personal academic freedom is not in danger here. It has not been abused and we have not had the problems of lack of individual freedom which have occurred in other States.

When we look on the other hand on problems of institutional autonomy we enter a more difficult field. The degree of direct State control of the universities becomes indeed a critical problem. It was well adverted to in the Robbins Report where again a whole chapter is devoted to the question of academic freedom. I do not wish to quote at length what is there but I refer those interested to paragraph 709 of the Robbins Report on page 230 where the Commission speaks of the concept of institutional freedom and what is involved. What the institutions look for, it is stated in the Robbins Report, is not a privilege but I think it does appear to be a privilege to the general public and accordingly I think there should be full public discussion of this particular problem. The burden of what the Robbins Committee has to say on this particular point is that institutional freedom for university institutions is itself in the national interest. This has been the opinion in these islands and is not today an outdated conception. How can we reconcile this desire of the university institutions to have a high degree of institutional autonomy with the very proper regard of the State for its accountability to the people for the money which it grants to the universities?

Again, there are many quotations which can be given and rather than weary the House with them I will just merely give the references to them. The solution which has obtained in Britain is that the University Grants Committee act as a buffer between the Government and the Treasury on the one hand and the individual institutions on the other. This is well described again in the Robbins Report and is described in particular in paragraphs 725 and 732. Lest anyone should think that this idea of a University Grants Committee, of a Buffer Committee refers particularly to conditions in Britain, praised by a British Committee talking about British institutions, I would refer you to a book on "British Universities and the State", by Berdahl, and published by the Cambridge University Press. Here an American social scientist studies this particular experiment and comes to the conclusion that this is the best model for regulating the regulations between the university and the State in any country.

What are the freedoms that the university looks for? What are the things in which the university would be apprehensive about direct State decision and direct State control? What are the elements of institutional freedom? I think they are five in number. First, the university institution seeks complete freedom of appointment. Secondly, it seeks freedom to control curricula and standards. Thirdly, it seeks freedom to control admissions. Fourthly, it seeks freedom to decide in the ultimate the balance between teaching and research. Fifthly, it seeks freedom to control the shape and the development of the institution. It does not claim all of those as absolute rights or with equal insistence. It does claim as essential both freedom of appointments and freedom to fix curricula and standards. It is prepared to act jointly with other bodies on the remaining claims which it makes.

As I say we have before us the evidence of a successful regulation of this desire of the university to be free with the natural concern of the State in the shape of the University Grants Committee. Should we copy such a system here? The Commission on Higher Education says we should. Indeed, the Commission on Higher Education limits the autonomy of the individual university institutions in two ways. First, it proposes a Council of Irish Universities and proposes that this council should have mandatory power in regard to minimum standards of entry and in regard to curricula and degrees. In other words, the commission proposal is that the new Irish University Institutions should not have individual autonomy but should have group autonomy through a national Council of Irish universities.

This is an admirable proposal and I think the individual institutions would be sufficiently free to act in relation to the base standards—perhaps I should say fundamental rather than base standards—laid down by the Council of Irish Universities. The two freedoms in regard to standards and curricula can be taken care of in this way. In regard to the question of the balance between teaching and research and in regard to the development of the institutions the commission has proposed that the ultimate recommendation to the Government here should be made by the Commission for Higher Education and that this Commission, having received a grant from the Government, would then issue block grants to the universities. Again this is in form an admirable institution. I do not think there could be any reasonable objection on the part of the individual university institutions to either the group-autonomy of the Council of Irish Universities or the adoption of the buffer system of the University Grants Committee in the form of the Commission on Higher Education.

The one worry which they would have is one specific recommendation in the Commission's Report that no person connected with any of the institutions should be members of the Commission for Higher Education. I think there would be a worry that here perhaps the State is going too far in encroaching in what are traditional areas of autonomy in regard to the universities. The University Grants Committee in Britain has a majority of academic persons. It has a full-time chairman who is a person of academic standing. While we can see the Commission's point that the new Commission for Higher Education should not be representatives of the academic community, this may well not be enough to justify what they propose. We can see the difficulties in a small country with a small number of institutions, of the individual institutions being represented on this body which makes final recommendations to the Government.

Nevertheless, there should be some serious thinking about this proposal. To say the least, there is a good case to be made for the fact that even if none of those people serving on the Commission for Higher Education are connected with the institutions of this country at the moment, those members or the majority of them should be academic persons. It should be possible to find people either from other countries or people who have been in academic life and have transferred to other walks of life in this country who would serve as members. I think in particular it would be highly desirable that this Commission should have a person as chairman who is an academic person. In this regard the Minister might well consider, in formulating his own proposals, that he might in setting up the Commission for Higher Education have a full-time chairman who would be an academic person. If this person were taken from one of our existing institutions it should be possible for the Minister to choose somebody, for the Government to nominate somebody who would be of the calibre while serving for a period of three or five years as chairman that he would be able to divorce himself from the private interests of the institution which he has left. There is a fundamental case for a full-time chairman who would be not only an academic, a person who has had a high academic training, and long academic experience, but a person who has had that experience in this country.

In regard to the general proposals, if we get in this country university institutions as well staffed, as well funded, as well directed towards research as has been suggested in the Commission's Report, with a council of Irish universities of the type suggested in the Report, with a Commission for Higher Education of the type but not necessarily the membership proposed in the Report, that we in this country will have the structure on which we can build a university system of which we can well be proud.

We have since the last settlement of the university question 60 years ago done good work in the universities in this country but it has been done under appalling difficulties in the past. The work of research, much of the work of teaching, has only been done almost as a matter of heroic virtue. Indeed we have had the position in recent years that the staffs of our Irish universities have only been able to carry on because of the hope of a change to come. This cannot last. Unless the reform is made now, unless the reform is thorough, then many of our staffs will lose heart. They will seek other employment in this country or they will seek academic employment abroad. I feel we have here in the Commission's Report the outline of a structure that our academic community can use to bring immeasurable benefit to the country and I feel we have in the Minister a person of sufficient energy to see that it is done thoroughly and with all convenient speed.

Mr. O'Quigley

Before Senator Quinlan speaks, could we inquire from the Leader of the House what is proposed in relation to the adjournment?

Tomás Ó Maoláin

I propose that we adjourn at 10 o'clock. It does not seem likely at this stage that we will come to the end of the debate by that time. I suggest, therefore, that we meet again next Wednesday to conclude the debate if it is understood that we conclude it on that day.

Mr. Garret FitzGerald

Yes.

Mr. O'Quigley

That seems an eminently reasonable proposal.

Professor Quinlan

At the outset, I feel it is only right and proper to pay tribute to the great work that has been done by the Commission on Higher Education. When some of the criticisms of that Commission have long since been forgotten, their work will stand as a monument to their industry and as a reference book that will be consulted for many years to come on figures and statistics of Irish university education. Indeed the document itself is, I think, a report of a Commission to end all commissions because I doubt if ever we will have another such commission again. It belongs to the leisurely days that have passed and indeed I do not think any of us within the university would have felt happy or indeed would have agreed to this course in 1960 if we felt that we would not get action until 1967.

It does seem that, first of all, the Commission itself was much too large, with a membership of 26 people, many of whom had little or no specialised contact with the problems at stake. Secondly, the time dragged on, and also I think the amount of secretarial assistance placed at the disposal of the Commission by the Government was not adequate. Indeed the Commission had concluded its labours over two years ago while the production of the document took the intervening space. I feel that in the modern day we are much more likely to take the procedure that we used in Investment in Education, where a small select group, guided by a steering committee, sought the facts on the situation as rapidly as possible and made their report thereon. That is not fully satisfactory. It does not complete the job and I feel that when the small group have produced their report as guided by the steering committee, then at that stage there should be something used like what is used in the OECD, the setting up of a working party to spend a concentrated period of a few weeks on whole-time work on the recommendations as brought before them by the survey team and that the working party would consist of people connected with the various subjects or groups covered by the survey team's work and they would hammer out within a couple of weeks an agreed report on the findings of the Committee.

That course was not adopted in the Report on Investment in Education and to that extent it lacked the third stage. I commend to the Government that in future we should adopt the procedure followed in the report on Investment in Education but add this third stage so that when the document arrives for public discussion it has already been subjected to a close scrutiny and a good deal of hard analysis by all the interests concerned.

The Report suffered I feel from the bad publicity it got. I agree, first of all, that the waiting period made almost everyone cynical about it and the fact that it was used as an excuse for doing nothing or very little at any rate on the university situation until the Commission's Report arrived. It became an instrument for holding back development rather than the great liberating force we had been looking forward to. Again I agree with most speakers here that the publication of the summary was in many ways ill-advised because not giving the arguments in full form it was misinterpreted by many and was attacked, especially on its recommendation regarding the new colleges, rather hastily and, I feel, unjustifiably in many respects. Again, of course, its central recommendation, that of the splitting up of the National University into independent universities and having four independent universities co-ordinated by the university commission was within a very short period dramatically superseded by the Minister's announcement of a Government decision to go much further than this and to merge the two university institutions in Dublin into a single University of Dublin. That was taken as being a repudiation of the Commission; in other words that the Government were as it were not accepting one of its recommendations and were drastically superseding it.

That was the public view on it but of course the facts are not so because, in fact, there is not altogether that difference between the recommendation of the Commission and the subsequent Government merger proposals that have been initiated. When one takes that away, the rest of the volume remains most readable and a very enlightening work on the university situation in general. Consequently we can feel proud of it and I am sure it will be read and studied not alone in this country but anywhere in the world where educationists or departments of education are anxious to study the university situation.

It is well to turn now to the main issue, that of the merger here in Dublin. I listened very intently to Senator Dooge and find myself very much in agreement with his ideas. I really cannot see the necessity for it. I have been in many cities in the US and in England where it is quite commonplace to have two or even three institutions, independent universities, operating independently in the same town with healthy competition between them for students and in service to the community. That is as it should be, a type of healthy, mature competition. At the present stage I am prepared to accept the Government's attempt to solve this problem in their own way, and I wish them every success, but I think the preservation of identity is most important and I cannot for a moment see that it could be preserved without retaining in each centre the basic faculties, arts, science and commerce, with at least one or two parts of the main professional schools such as engineering. There is no need for one great engineering complex; there could be one or two branches in one centre and more in the other. In other words, the institutions concerned will each have to maintain the essentials of a university if they are to retain their identity so that a student who spent his time essentially in one place would feel that he had got a university education and had the opportunity of meeting a reasonable cross-section of students from the other faculties. That is not to say that we should have all faculties in all places any more than when we say we have independent universities in Cork and in Galway, we should have all faculties in either.

We must be realistic and keep an eye on the economics involved. It makes sense that you do not want two of very small departments and it also makes sense that post-graduate schools should be operated together or should constitute a single unit as far as possible. That should not apply merely in Dublin but should apply to post-graduate schools within the whole 26 counties, or may I say, the whole 32. Certainly, the overall assessment of post-graduate facilities should take account of Galway and Cork and Dublin facilities combined and we should ensure ease of transfer and maximum use of facilities in all centres. Probably in Dublin that may come with the co-ordination in one single faculty of all post-graduate schools.

There is far too much loose thinking that because a thing is big it must be good. That is our attitude to the supermarkets and to super-everything. We feel that if you get two small units together into one, somehow you have achieved improved efficiency. The experience in industry does not bear that out and neither does our experience at university level. Senator Dooge spoke at great length on autonomy and freedom within the university so that individual research workers may give their best. This also applies to the type of friendly competition you might expect from two units in one city. I should hate to feel that we had a single department of economics in the city of Dublin which had a uniform policy right through it. I should much prefer to see a clash of ideas or a clash of schools of thought emerging because both would be seeking after truth and endeavouring to assess the problems of the country by the yardstick of truth. I think the clash of ideas is what really makes it worthwhile. Consequently, I hope that ultimately the Minister's aim will be achieved but in a framework that will ensure the continued survival and development of the identity of both institutions.

I can sympathise with the Minister's main problem, the question of competing capital demands by both centres. The situation which had developed in university education was farcical and should never have been permitted to arise. Somebody should have been strong enough to say: "Yes, we shall have university education but in one centre, not in two." The same should hold for the development of the State. That is primarily what the Government have. I think it could have been achieved as well within the framework of the recommendations of the Commission on Higher Education. It can probably be achieved by the present arrangement suggested by the Government. The Commission did show a very sympathetic and enlightened approach to the problem of university education in Dublin and the difficulties associated with it. We can study and learn from the Commission even in the framework of the present merger. The Commission's recommendations in regard to co-operation, goodwill and development are still relevant. Essentially, the proposal of the Government is for a strong university and two relatively weak colleges. I hope the weakness of the colleges is not taken too far. The opposite principle did operate where you had a weak university and two very strong colleges. In fact the colleges were so strong that in essence, they were independent universities.

Another highlight in the Commission's Report with which I want to deal is the matter of the new colleges. I am sorry that Senator Yeats has left because he might find a second Senator who has a good word to say for these new colleges. Senator Dooge analysed this question very clearly and showed that there was a good deal of merit in the suggestion. We would be completely naive and merely showing our own stupidity if we dismissed this suggestion out of hand. We must remember that it was produced after long deliberation and much thought by a Commission of 26 people, including Professor Butterfield and Dr. Carter. It was not made lightly but was made in an effort to extend university education to wider horizons.

I can certainly sympathise with the case made by Limerick for a university of their own with limited faculties. I might say that, if they fail to get that, half a loaf would be better than no bread. The proposal contained in this for a new college for Limerick with a number of modifications, if accepted in the right spirit by Limerick city, could be the foundation stone for full university status within the city. We really cannot look at the future, with its expansion and its insistence on the primacy of education in the setting of a prosperous and expanding Ireland, without conceding that regions like Limerick city, containing 100,000 people, of course must have ample facilities for higher education in the future. This may not come next year, or in five or ten years because first we have the urgent task of making up for 30 or 40 years of neglect; but ultimately, as things develop, Irish educational facilities will have to be provided in a much more widespread way than merely confined to the three favoured cities of Cork, Dublin and Galway.

The main weakness in what was recommended in respect of the new colleges was the suggestion of granting degrees—a primary degree in the new college with an M.A. in the university. I think that is all wrong. I do not know how it got going. Had it stated that the normal award from such a college would be a diploma with adequate facilities for the transfer at some intermediate stage—probably at the end of the second year or maybe the third year—for students showing exceptional ability to choose a university course elsewhere, that could have been acceptable.

We have to get back to reality in the question of university education in this country. What is our purpose? The purpose is primarily to harness our intellectual potential and brain power for the service of this country. I do not think any one of us can contemplate taking all the available university material from our secondary schools, giving them the best training possible at the expense of the Irish taxpayer and seeing the vast majority of them emigrate while we have difficulties in filling positions at home. Remember, we cannot have all generals in the army and no privates. That seems to be one of our difficulties in talking about higher education at present.

In higher education, we have to provide not alone for top university research work and ensure that we are turning out people who ultimately will train on to become our university people of the future. We want to see being produced the people to man our regional colleges of technology. We want to see being produced the people to man our vocational, secondary and primary schools. We want to see being produced the people to man our industrial life and every facet of our community work. Therefore, we must look on the picture as a whole.

The first essential in looking at that picture is to try to estimate what numbers we have to cater for. At the moment the suggestion is that the universities which had 5,000 students prewar have gone up to about 14,000 or 15,000 today and are expected to reach 23,000 by 1975. Let us look at that, first of all, and ask: could we support it; is it within our reach? The estimate has been £16 million current, which means an annual expenditure of about £600 per student. That is about twice as much as we are spending today. It is still a good deal below the £1,000 per student projected for Coleraine and prevailing in many English centres today. But then our resources are less than England's and probably the £600 figure is a reasonable enough target. Therefore, financially, £16 million a year should be within our scope in seven or eight years time.

The next question is: have we the student numbers? A figure of 23,000 would mean an entry of about 7,000 students per annum. Are these available? We have 60,000 births per annum. About 25,000 of these are ultimately expected, with very careful husbandry and so on, to arrive at Leaving Certificate level. Take 7,000 out of 25,000. Getting that number to the university should be possible but it is getting very near the limit. Between those who have not got sufficient credit in the Leaving Certificate to go on to university and those who decide by choice not to go to the university, the figure of 7,000 is getting quite high. In fact, it is 12½ per cent, or one in eight. That is actually an estimate I have seen given in many countries where they are concerned about getting the last ounce out of their secondary schools for university training. It is held as a target—about 12½ per cent or one in eight of the children. It should be within our capability, but it is getting very near the limit.

We have, let us say, a pool of talent of a certain brain power level and the next question is: where is this required? First, we have the demands of the teacher training colleges. At present these are quite high. They should skim off around 1,000 students. We want a decision from the Government as to whether those 1,000 students are to be included as university students or not. Up to this, they are not. But I think the whole trend of the development of modern education demands that the educational profession be unified and that a university degree be an essential part of that.

The next great competitor for our talent leaving secondary school is the Civil Service. Up to this recruitment to the Civil Service has competed directly with the university. You have the question of recruitment from Intermediate Certificate levels, and after as clerical officers and now executive officers with honours Leaving Certificate. That is something we have to look at very carefully. Is it realistic to hold that university education is something wonderful, something we want all to participate in and avail of, and at the same time, to continue staffing our Government machinery and services from before that stage is reached? We have got to think again. If we are to prepare for a modern State, we will have to raise the recruitment level for the Civil Service and have far more recruited with degrees.

In this respect the ordinary, derided pass degree should be looked at very carefully. I do not agree with the way in which this has been disparaged. A pass degree is a general purpose degree. I should like to feel that the present system of recruitment of executive officers to the Civil Service would be replaced by recruitment of those holding an ordinary university degree. That would ensure a much broader and more enlightened approach to Civil Service work and would fit the Civil Service into the framework, that it was staffed by persons who had university training.

The other competitor for Leaving Certificate students is the vocation of technicians. It is generally agreed that we are deplorably short of technicians and are using technologists at work that could more cheaply be done by technicians. Technicians are very high-grade people and need a high-grade specialised training. They need a level of education that is gradually approaching the level for university entrance, perhaps differently orientated. At present, a career as a technician is as attractive as a career in the teaching profession or in many of the avenues open to graduates. The vocation of technicians has to get its full quota from the available Leaving Certificate students. How many are we planning on and what is the provision in that respect? The Government have announced plans for eight technical colleges. What number will they take?

We want more realistic thinking as to the numbers that can be spared and put into the university stream. The number of 23,000 is much too high. Of course, the number will evolve as we develop but at all times we must make adequate provision for the manning of our institutions. Technicians, teachers, the Civil Service have priorities. Indeed, the proposal for the new colleges was aimed at providing a certain type of training for what is called a pass degree but which should be called a diploma, training which would equip students to stay at home. Their horizon would not be quite as wide as that of the pass graduate and certainly nothing like as wide or as international as that of the honours graduate. The person so trained would have a very real place in the structure of our country. We cannot have gold cuff links and no shirt. That would not be to the national advantage.

If only a certain number are to go to the university, entrance standards can be raised. There has been a suggestion of three or four honours. That can be adjusted. I should like to feel that in connection with university graduates we would develop the US frontier spirit, that the graduate would regard his university training as something that would equip him to tackle whatever task would come his way, that he would not feel that because he has had training in engineering, he is groomed simply to fill a routine engineering role. As examples, we have the Minister for Education and the Minister for Local Government, both of whom belong to the engineering profession but have shown the spirit of adventure in tackling another profession. That is as it should be. University training should train people to their fullest capacity so that they in turn will create the national expansion and development without which any planning for university or other education cannot succeed.

We have to consider where the university fits in with the Civil Service —we recognise that the Civil Service is a competitor for secondary school students—and also the part that the university can play in vitalising the Civil Service. The Civil Service can provide a place where trained people are available for secondment for six months, or a year or three years. Civil servants can get sabbatical leave for six months or a year in order to go to a university to continue their studies or to engage in some research project within the university. It is only by this means that we can harness all our educational energies and brainpower and talents to the task of developing the country.

Now I want to turn to the question of entrance standards in the university. I am a little perturbed by a great deal of the criticism of entrance standards and the suggestion that there are a number of very deserving students outside the university who should be within it, granted the facilities. I agree that there are some persons in that category but I want to take the corollary to that. The corollary is the suggestion that there are within universities today large numbers who should not be there if the university were properly organised and if selections were properly arranged. I want to show that that is not so because, at present, of over 100 students attending the university, about 85 succeed in passing the first university examination. Some may fail in the summer but they eventually pass in the autumn, and at least 80 per cent go on to do their degree. Therefore, the dropping out is about 20 per cent there.

Speaking from experience of my own college, I can say that the losses between the first year and the BA are almost negligible. It will be easier in the future to create a standard, with the changes that are about to take place in the Leaving Certificate. There will be graded Leaving Certificates, A, B, C, D and E, corresponding to the various percentages, above 80, 70, 60 and so on. In such a situation the pass in the Leaving Certificate will no longer be a standard. The universities will be perfectly free to lay down their own standards, and the universities can work together and decide that they want so many points achieved in the Leaving Certificate, so many points for A, so many points for B, and so on. There is more flexibility being introduced there. I for one hope there will not be any unnecessary duplication of examining. It would be a waste of university talent and of very scarce personnel if they have to get down to examinations for university entrance apart from the Leaving Certificate. It should be possible to make the Leaving Certificate suit the two purposes and to adjust standards accordingly.

No examination of the university system could begin without the realisation of the grave disparity between the number of our teachers and the extent of our laboratory and other resources compared with what is considered necessary in more advanced countries, especially in England and in Queen's University Belfast. I do not want to go too far into the figures but one could show quite reasonably that, per 100 students, the resources available, say, to Queen's University, Belfast, which is just typical, are about twice what are available to us. It is a great tribute to the members of our universities that, by and large, the products turned out compare more than favourably with those produced in universities elsewhere. The test of that is that our engineers go abroad and their degrees are recognised just the same as the degrees of the English and other universities. Our doctors go abroad in the same way. Our teachers are accepted for teaching in England and elsewhere. The products of our honours schools go abroad and enter post-graduate schools, some of the best post-graduate schools in the world, and more than hold their own.

It is a great source of satisfaction and comfort to us, when we see all the resources available to our colleagues elsewhere, to see and read how our students are doing abroad.

With that situation we face the future with confidence. Of course, we cannot go on indefinitely in this situation. Most of the members carrying on this type of advanced research work and sending the products of their honours school abroad are men who themselves have spent considerable periods abroad. They have been, as it were, carried forward under the impetus of what they acquired when they themselves were abroad. Despite shortcomings and lack of equipment, and so on, here, they are determined to do a job of which they need not be ashamed before their colleagues in better endowed institutions.

That is the background against which the Minister can confidently plan the future. If the Minister wanted further confirmation of that, he need only look to the numbers of university people within this country who could give him positive proof of attractive offers from corresponding institutions in England, Australia, America and elsewhere, offers of much bigger posts than they occupy here and much higher salaries. That is the test by which we can judge our personnel here. While we criticise the position, let us at all times pay tribute to the people who are doing such a fine job with such limited resources.

Debate adjourned.

The Seanad adjourned at 10 p.m. until 3 p.m. on Wednesday, 31st January, 1968.

Seanad Éireann díospóireacht - Wednesday, 24 Jan 1968

Co-ordination of University Facilities in Dublin: Motion (Resumed).

Acting-Chairman

Seanad Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 24 Jan 1968