James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)

I thank Deputy Feighan. I agree with him that St. Angela’s College is a wonderful site. I enjoyed my visit to it. I was really impressed at its activities. It is a wonderful site with its vista of the lakes and the actual point in the landscape it enjoys. Its provision is also wonderful. Councillor Edel McSharry, whom the Deputy knows from other fields, heads up the nursing team there. Certainly, we had a good visit. Deputy Feighan and the Minister of State, Deputy Marian Harkin, were in attendance as well. We had a useful look at St. Angela’s College, as well as visiting ATU in Sligo.

I would love to see St. Angela’s continue to thrive and expand with activities and further growth on that site. At a time when we need more nursing supply, we need to be doing more, not less. St. Angela’s College has a role to play in that regard. Having said that, I also recognise institutional autonomy. When the technological university concept was created, we effectively said we were going to build clusters in regions of what were formally institutes of technology or independent colleges and put them together as universities, which we have done. It goes against the grain of that to an extent to direct them and say that although they are now a unit, they can only work in certain ways within that unit or within those subunits. While I agree with the Deputy that there is a great role for St. Angela’s College, it is ultimately up to the ATU executive as to how it manages its own resources and assets within the portfolio. I certainly agree the opportunity is there and I would love to see it developed, particularly in the nursing area, as the Deputy has mentioned. I am not forgetting home economics either, which is taught particularly well there. There is also the scope for other auxiliary-type courses.

In respect of student accommodation at ATU Sligo, as the Deputy knows, some 16 acres were purchased, or are going through the purchase process in any event. I approved the money, which was the scope of my Department’s involvement.

I did that with a happy heart a number of months ago and I hope to see that progress well. There is a strong opportunity for accommodation provision in that. The ATU executive will lead out on that and take decisions as to the use of and plans for the site. There is a technological universities student accommodation fund and I believe engagement between the officials on that is ongoing at this stage so I would be hopeful we will see it develop.

More broadly, the other work I have referenced, such as the standardised design and the student accommodation strategy, will benefit Sligo as well as everywhere else. I expect these national programmes will be of benefit everywhere.