Professor John Boland:

I will respond on a number of matters. First, Brexit is a very serious problem for Ireland in terms of how the economy will work. It is a very big deal for SMEs. For the educational sector there could be some upsides to it. There are a lot of academics who are hugely unsettled in the UK and looking for positions elsewhere. A lot of them have left the UK. There are now people moving to places such as Holland. In reality, we are not well positioned to benefit from Brexit because of the lack of infrastructural investment. We have great difficulty hiring anybody at the moment. It is not just a matter of providing the salaried position; facilities and reputation are also issues. Our rankings have dramatically impacted our reputation which does not make us an attractive opportunity for Brexit. There are some other structural issues that have to be dealt with. Brexit could work if we can provide UK colleagues a base in Ireland for UK universities to engage with European funding opportunities. This means that universities will have to understand how to operate real joint faculty appointments so faculty members can be in Ireland 50% of the time and benefit from that. We are not set up for this currently but we could possibly do it and it would have a big positive outcome.

I will address one of the specific items that was mentioned. There are very serious issues that nobody wants to talk about and which presidents do not want to mention but the reality is we are having a problem with the accreditation of professional degrees. This is happening in skills-based courses. For example in medical courses, where one needs time with the patient, the right kind of clinical training and the right hands-on time, whether in a lab or elsewhere, we are not providing the requisite level of engagement. We are running the risk that if we have to go for accreditation we will not be professionally accredited. That would undermine a huge range of courses and not only that, it would undermine Irish society.

One other last thing is fixed-term contracts. This is a major issue. There are two edges to this. It is a double-edged sword. Universities cannot become the homes for everyone who engages in research. It is really important that we can identify the people who are engaged in research and, where appropriate, provide them faculty positions because we need that stream of new talent coming through. It means our universities have to work very effectively with industry so that these people are in our shop window. We need to be absolutely engaging with industry in terms of career development of the staff we currently have. There is not a single postgraduate or postdoctoral training programme in Ireland worth its salt. If we compare ourselves with professional entities like Imperial College, they have a shop window. They have huge numbers of researchers engaging in world class research and they interface with industry and employers in a way that can actually move people out of the system. Given the employment control framework, we will not solve in European law fixed-term contracts but we need to be conduits for training talent and moving them on to the next level.