Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The advice we are getting from the Parliamentary Counsel is that not defining the words "further education" at the very beginning of the Bill will not leave a lacuna in the legislation. The Parliamentary Counsel was also supportive of the view that defining "further education" would be overly prescriptive and provide too narrow a definition for the very exciting developments that might occur. On that basis, it was considered that we should consider other options, rather than defining "further education". We are all aware that we have had a number of approaches and representations from various groups involved to have their particular element of further education included as part of the definition. If we were to do this, the definition would become unwieldy and, second, it would negate an opportunity in the future of including other forms of further education provision that may not be apparent to us at this time. We have been advised that not having the definition in the Bill is not an issue in terms of its functioning and that to include it in would be too prescriptive and leave too narrow a window to allow the further education sector to grow and develop.