Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State and her officials to the committee today. I thank the officials for the information they provided when I asked for it. That is very welcome. I acknowledge that much work has gone on in recent years to get this right. I acknowledge the work of the various institutions, the officials, Ministers and trade unions. The TUI has been key. It is very important that as politicians we do not interfere in any of the industrial relations matters that pertain to the Bill.

I look forward to going through the Bill in detail. It is very welcome. It needs to happen fairly quickly. The Minister of State mentioned that she will table amendments on Report Stage on the investigators and I fully support that. There is some resistance from certain people but we think it needs to happen. However, I would not like to see the Bill delayed because of that. I got slightly nervous when the Minister of State mentioned the Attorney General's advice and the approval of the Government. We want to see the Bill go forward and for the institutions that are ready to start moving to make progress. One institution will be ready to start the process in March. We do not want anything to hold that up.

Given that the Minister of State is introducing amendments to the Universities Act I will bring forward amendments to allow the Royal College of Surgeons to designate itself as a university within the jurisdiction and not just abroad, as has been the case in recent years. That is a bit of an anomaly. I mention that now but it will be for discussion on Report Stage.