Mr. Ned Costello:

I welcome the opportunity to address the committee on the draft scheme of the Bill. It is important legislation, both for the prospective technological universities and for the higher education system as a whole.
I will begin by clearly stating the position of the Irish Universities Association, IUA, on technological universities and their designation, which is that, essentially, any institution that is called a university, in the way it looks, acts and behaves, must be a university. That means it should be characterised by provision at least at levels 8 to 10, although that does not preclude provision at other levels, and it should have a strong emphasis on research also. If those clear criteria are met and they can be further elaborated, any institution, technological or otherwise, that merits the title "university" should get it.
On the subject of criteria, in a number of interactions with the Higher Education Authority we stressed the importance of clear criteria for designation. Those provided for in the heads of the Bill are somewhat less stringent than we believe they should be, however, it is important that there are clear criteria in the Bill and we commend the Minister for inserting them in the primary legislation and not leaving it to secondary legislation.
I refer to regional provision. As Mr. MacGabhann stated, it is important that there is fully balanced regional provision throughout the country. Something we need to be aware of is that the consolidation and establishment of technological universities could leave many regions without an institute of technology. In that context, it is very important that within technological universities there continues to be adequate provision for levels 6 and 7 education and that there is not a drift entirely into level 8 and above because that will disadvantage a number of students, and particularly students whose attainment levels will not allow them succeed in a level 8 course. We have some evidence of that already.
On the sustainability of higher education, there is the old adage that structure should follow strategy and one of our concerns is that there is an emphasis in policy on structure whereas the pressing concern is the financial sustainability of higher education overall. As a number of speakers stated, we are in a crisis in that regard and unless it is solved, we will not be in a position to undertake the institutional reform and have successful institutions. It is a critical issue. The IUA is having an international symposium on the sustainability of higher education on 29 September and I take the opportunity to invite members of the committee to that event; we will issue them with a formal invitation shortly.
On the question of governing authorities, we welcome the provisions in the legislation. Some years ago the Minister asked us for a report on governing authorities, matters of university governance and higher education governance overall. In that report we proposed a configuration very similar to that proposed in the heads of the Bill, namely, that governing authorities should be smaller and that their membership should be competency based.
One point of detail is that we believe strongly that the determination of the competency framework should be a matter for the institutions themselves and should not require the approval of the HEA because diversity is an important part of national policy, and this is where we believe institutions are best equipped to determine the competency framework their institution needs with regard to its mission.
We believe collegiality is very important and we were somewhat surprised that there is a provision in the heads that decisions of governing authorities be made on the basis of majority voting rather than primarily by consensus. We believe consensus is important in that regard.
Accountability and autonomy was mentioned by a number of speakers. There are provisions in the heads, and they have been cited, that run directly against institutional autonomy and contradict some of the other provisions in the Bill on remuneration and so on, which follow the norm for legislation. The specific provision on the directive power of the Minister is an unusual provision. It may even be unique because it allows the Minister, without reference to anybody, to direct that an institution comply, for example, with a collective agreement to which it may not have been a party. I hasten to add that we have no difficulty with collective agreements, but it overturns the principle of volunteerism, which underpins all industrial relations.
Similarly, on numbers, if this provision went through there would be nothing to stop the Minister saying that a particular discipline in a university reduced the numbers in that discipline. This could be used, I admit in extremis, but we must account for the fact that, sometimes, in extremishappens. It could be used in a directive way, and it could impact directly on academic freedom as well as institutional autonomy.
There are provisions about which we are seriously concerned but, overall, we welcome the legislation. I am sure it will improve further with dialogue and with input from the committee and other parts of the democratic process. We look forward to seeing it progress.