Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The first question was on the position on capital assets. There is no agreement between the two parties in coalition on broadening the base of the assessment from household income to reserves, savings or capital assets. It is not part of the programme for Government and, as I have said previously in public, that is the position at the moment. There may be some movement on broadening the base to approximate the evaluation of means, similar to the assessment used for social welfare purposes. That might be a possibility. However, there is no agreement per seon capital assets. Therefore, there is no proposed change, despite my party's position, which is that we would like to see that happen.
The Bill on technological universities will be coming to the committee in due course in the normal way after the committee has sent back the enrolment policy Bill. We have no wish to overload the committee with two Bills at the same time. The 84 sections will provide for three things, in essence. First, to enable the existing 14 institutes of technology, if they so wish, to merge or come together. They have already indicated their position in response to an invitation from the Higher Education Authority. They were asked, inter alia, where they see their future in terms of collaboration and so forth. All third level institutions find themselves in educational regional clusters anyway and they are required to co-operate. Let us consider Limerick, for example, where the University of Limerick, the Limerick Institute of Technology and the Limerick School of Art and Design would be required to form an educational cluster. The same applies in other parts of the country. That is the first component of the Bill.
The second component of the Bill is to provide for a merged institution. The Dublin Institute of Technology and the institutes of technology in Blanchardstown and Tallaght have signalled their intention to proceed down the path to merge and become a technological university. The Bill provides for what they must do to get there, including the criteria they must meet. These are criteria established by an international recommendation panel of experts, conveyed to the Higher Education Authority and accepted by the Department and myself. The criteria would be enshrined in law in order that institutes will not be able to qualify to become a technological university unless they manifestly meet the criteria. The last thing this is about is changing the badge over the door of the building. It is about transforming the internal quality.
The third component of the legislation provides for a change in the governance structure of all the institutions. Historically, the regional technical colleges were attached to the vocational educational committees. The model of governance was not dissimilar to that of the old vocational educational committee schools or institutions, with a large number of county councillors on the boards. Modern recommendation and practice is that the composition of the board of governors should be representative of the internal academic staff, including senior and middle academic staff, students, including graduate and undergraduate, and personnel from the wider world.
In the technological university legislation there is a definition of the composition or description of a technological university such that it is not a broad-based university like UCC, for example, which has a medical school, a law school, a philosophy school and other sections. UCC covers the full spectrum. However, the technological university will be focused narrowly on converting research into commodities that can be manufactured and distributed and which can create wealth, profit and employment for the region in which the technological university is located. This is all in the documentation but there are requirements within the composition and the activities whereby they must have a structured relationship with large-scale industry and enterprise in the region in which they are located. We do not need more universities of the type we currently have but we need to advance the institutes of technology to a higher level of wealth creation, in order that they can commercialise research and apply research to activities and commodities that can be sold abroad or at home and that will create employment.
The timetable will go out for consultation and we should have it back by Easter. I believe we can get it enacted between Easter and the end of the June session, because we now go into the middle of July. That is my optimistic expectation.
When will it happen? They must merge first and they cannot merge until the legislation is enacted. They can do a good deal of preliminary work but mergers of any kind are always slow because we are dealing with human beings and it takes time to integrate. I envisage there will be a stage that will take them into this time next year, if not beyond, to get to the point where a merged entity will seek to start the journey to get up the ladder for qualification.
I will anticipate the Deputy's final question. Three groups have indicated that they want to travel that road. I have already described the position in Dublin involving the Dublin Institute of Technology. The institutes of technology in Cork and Tralee have indicated their position and they have embarked on exploring the possibility of a merger with the intention of going the full journey. Likewise, with the institutes in Carlow and Waterford.