Rónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh na haíonna ar fad agus gabhaim buíochas leo as ucht a bheith linn.

I wish to put two questions. Under the heading of Dr. Alan Wall's line, "Our institutions require a balance between autonomy and accountability", which has been referred to several times, I will discuss governing authorities. As I understand it, this balance is necessary to the integrity of our system. The Irish Horseracing Regulatory Board, IHRB, will be before the Joint Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine on Thursday. It gets €9 million or €10 million of taxpayers' money and is accountable to the Comptroller and Auditor General. Given that autonomy is necessary, how does the public ensure that money is being well and properly spent? Are representatives from local authorities on governing bodies not part of that process, in that they guarantee a certain visibility of the governance of higher education to the public it is supposed to be serving?

Perhaps Councillor Hoade will have a view on my next question. While I get the importance of competence-based appointments, is there some support that we could give to members of local authorities so that, when they set about discharging their responsibilities, which I hope they will continue to have, as members of governing authorities, they can come to the job with the expertise they need? Can we have it both ways in terms of competence-based appointments while also recognising the particular competence of local authority members and enhancing that through training as people join the board and so on?

I have been raising issues about academic freedom and the safety of students coming from China in particular to participate in higher education in this country, where there are developing relationships between Irish institutions and institutions in other countries, not just China, where our rights and freedoms may not be respected. If we are speaking about autonomy and academic freedom, we need to recognise that these may be under threat in the developing relationships between our universities and institutions in certain countries. What does this legislation have to say to that challenge? The committee may decide to explore this issue. That is not yet decided, but I am preparing a scoping report on the topic. What can be done to assist the accountability of our higher education institutions to ensure that we are doing our utmost for the safety and security of staff and students, both ours going abroad and people from other countries coming to Ireland?