Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 66:

In page 32, lines 4 to 6, to delete all words from and including “(1) The” in line 4 down to and including line 6 and substitute the following:“(1) The applicant institutes concerned shall, in relation to an application for an order under section 33, jointly comply with the following criteria (in this chapter referred to as “eligibility criteria”):”.

Amendment No. 66 provides that eligibility criteria shall be jointly complied with in an application for an order under section 46 for TU designation on which application is made jointly by two or more applicant institutes. Therefore, the various numerically-based criteria - such as the requirement that at least 4% of students be registered on a programme which leads to an award of at least honours bachelors degree level or research students be registered on a programme which leads to at least masters degree level - are required to be met jointly by the consortium rather than by individual institutions within the consortium. These amendments are required in light of the fact that applicant institutes will not have merged at this stage in the process, whereas previously they would have had to merge before proceeding to apply for designation.

Does the Chairman wish me to discuss amendments Nos. 106 and 108?