Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail)
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I wish to raise a number of issues. Does the term "campus" need to be defined in the legislation? I do not think it is defined. Many campuses in various regions are very important to people. There are also campuses that will close down at some point or change when the Grangegorman campus in Dublin opens. There are some campuses such as Castlebar, part of the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology, GMIT, that I am very concerned to protect. There are other Dublin Institute of Technology, DIT, campuses that will move to Grangegorman.

I want some legislative protection for the campuses that it is intended will stay. I have tried to provide for this in some of my amendments and I will come back on Report Stage with more detail in this regard. I want a provision in the Bill to the effect that Castlebar will remain part of GMIT, or whatever institution that body would eventually become part of, and any other offshoots around the country. The regional provision and regional location of campuses in the institute of technology, IT, sector is equally critical in the technological university, TU, sector if an IT is to become a TU. It is an absolute precondition, a sine qua non, of Fianna Fáil's support for the Bill that not only the regional identity and regional focus, but also the actual physical location of campuses and the multidisciplinary range of courses provided in those various campuses are retained, while obviously not legislating for the exact courses provided in universities. A little more work needs to go into this, and I think there needs to be a definition of "campus" that acknowledges that some in Dublin are to move to Grangegorman but that others very badly need to be protected and maintained in the legislation.