Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 14 January 2016

Committee on Education and Social Protection: Select Sub-Committee on Education and Skills

Technological Universities Bill 2015: Committee Stage

11:20 am

Photo of Jan O'SullivanJan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

These amendments relate to the criteria set out in the Bill which are based entirely on the original criteria set out in the landscape document published by the Higher Education Authority. I do not think it would be appropriate to introduce additional requirements to the criteria at this stage as that would be unfair to the consortiums that have been working towards reaching the appropriate standards.

It would seem unfair to alter the criteria at this stage in the process when they entered into it knowing what was required. Expecting them to reach higher or different standards at this stage probably would not be very fair.

I also draw attention to the functions of technological universities set out in section 22. Those functions include, at section 22(1)(b), a requirement that technological universities provide programmes of education and training that reflect the needs of citizens and facilitate learning by flexible means. This element in the legislation might address the concern of Deputy O'Brien in particular, as well as Deputy O'Sullivan. The general point is that the criteria were set out at the start and changing that now might cause some to say that the process was entered into without knowing about reaching that level. It may well be a laudable criterion but if the parties did not know about it from the start, there might be a difficulty. I know the Deputy made another point about communities and it may be easier to incorporate that.

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