Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge in the first instance the recognition that has been given by the Minister in his amendments. I welcome the news that he will look again at further amendments. That is good news. One of the reasons I submitted these amendments along with Deputy Conway-Walsh was to try to get a debate around the additional - it should not be a burden - responsibility on the HEA. Without sight of those, we will still argue these out and maybe persuade the Minister when he is putting his amendments together to take on board some of the content of the amendments we tabled.

With regard to amendment No. 8, I am not sure about the wording and what is meant by "without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing" in this context. What could be unfairly prejudiced by a duty to promote the use of Irish? It is the phrase "without prejudice" I am querying. It is a good debate and hopefully we will move forward with some of the amendments that myself and others have proposed. I believe this would be important, even if the Minister mentioned that amendment No. 212 should not be included in the Long Title. Often, when changes like that are suggested, they are left to one side. If it is not in the Title, it is seen by those who have a duty to implement the legislation as not having been stated. We have a job of work to do to make sure that as we amend the Higher Education Authority Bill 2022, nobody can be under any doubt regarding the duty the HEA already has in terms of the promotion of the use of Irish. It is not that we are proposing an additional duty; we are seeking to restate what is already there but has not been delivered on.