Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael)
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Are we happy? Of course we are not happy when we see the deliberations in the Committee of Public Accounts with Accounting Officers - in this case presidents of universities - and the stuff we are all confronted with as Members of the Oireachtas. Ultimately, the Oireachtas votes the money to our Department and then our Department delegates it to the Higher Education Authority. It then goes to each of the universities. The Accounting Officer is the president of the university who is auditable both internally and externally, the external auditor being with the Comptroller and Auditor General. Given some of the stuff that has come out, one could not possibly be happy with it. Over the coming period, as some of the current investigations run their course, my request, through my Secretary General, to the Higher Education Authority has been quite simple. If the authority believes that it needs powers additional to those it has and that are contained in the relatively recent legislation relating to it, then I would certainly be of a mind to afford it those powers. Many of the problems that have come to light would not have been unearthed were it not for the Higher Education Authority Act 2022, which the former Minister, now Taoiseach, brought in.

I am conscious, as previous speakers said, of academic and higher education institutions' independence and autonomy. The Minister for further and higher education does not order the tarmacadam that is needed for a particular project. There has to be accountability at higher education institution level, and that goes for the technological university sector as much as it does the older university sector. I do not differentiate one from the other. We cannot have a situation whereby if we increase the powers of investigation or compellability or seek to strengthen the Act, that would in any way dilute the responsibility of an Accounting Officer. It is the Accounting Officer - in this case is the president of a university - who, together with the governing authority and the executive of a university, makes the decisions that incur financial responsibilities. We cannot deviate from that either. There is a fine balance between autonomy and accountability. Ultimately, however, the Oireachtas has to be satisfied that public money is being spent properly. If the Oireachtas is not happy in that regard, then we will obviously have to take further steps.