Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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I welcome all our witnesses here today. I too am very impressed by the very positive messages the witnesses have put out about all their universities, despite the challenges they have. Those challenges are there across all sectors, particularly in relation to housing. Deputy Feighan spoke of Local Link and better transport. I visited Loughan House, Blacklion, County Cavan, with the Minister for justice a few weeks ago. I was delighted to learn from the governor that some of the inmates there were travelling to ATU in Sligo to do their courses. They go on a Local Link bus each morning that travels from Blacklion, or Enniskillen, to Sligo. There are five services per day. Those people would not be able to get access to those courses were not for the Local Link provision, which is very heartening to hear. It is also heartening to learn that those people are getting that opportunity in education. I presume it was also due to the initiative of the ATU in Sligo, so I commend them.

If the late President Paddy Hillery was around, he would be a very proud man today to think there are 106,000 students in what were formerly the regional technical colleges. It was his vision in 1963 as Aire Oideachais to establish and set out a strategy for the reach of technological colleges. We knew they went on to other forms as institutes of technology and now are part of the technological universities, which is a very welcome development. I remember listening as a student to Noel Mulcahy, the author of the Mulcahy report. He had close links, as our Limerick friends would know, with that particular region. He was a Member of the Oireachtas also. I remember him talking to us as students about what the vision at that time was. I believe it was Dr. Lillis who referred to it. It was that the colleges of education were to service the needs of all regions, local, urban and rural. All of the witnesses today cited the importance of the technological universities from the point of view of driving economic development, servicing the needs of the local regions, and ensuring that the people in those regions had easier and better access to higher level education. What is happening today is really putting in place the vision that went back to the early 1960s. I believe the Noel Mulcahy report was in the early 1970s but President Hillery's vision was from 1963 onwards, from my recollection. It is a great credit to all of the people who contributed to that continuum of developing education, developing it on a regional basis, and making it more accessible to people from families who traditionally did not go on to further or higher level education.

I was also struck by the point, I believe it was made by Dr. Lillis, about the needs of the local regions. I drive past the campus at Grangegorman. I am sure that Senator Tully also does so on her way here or going home. Some day I must treat myself to a visit to that campus. It is great to see that there. As a member of Government at the time, I remember Bertie Ahern as Taoiseach and Brian Cowen as Taoiseach who, despite the awful financial difficulties at the time, were adamant that the Grangegorman project would go ahead and that such an opportunity would not arise again if it was not taken to develop that particular campus as an education campus right in the heart of our city.

Great credit is due to all the people who brought that about in the meantime. We also see the welcome developments across all the different technological university campuses throughout the country. Do the technological universities have good collaboration with our colleges of further education? The witnesses mentioned families and the first person in a family to go to higher education. Over the years, I have attended the graduation at Cavan Institute and I have seen young people graduate from there who come from families I know well and where traditionally, there would not have been an interest in education. It is very heartening to see that progression. We need more of it. Of course, there is still a lacuna there that is not being filled. Many of the graduates from our colleges of further education go on to higher education, get their primary degrees and many of them go on to postgraduate level as well. I sincerely hope there is a good link between all the technological universities and the colleges of further education as well because we need that progression.

As my colleague, Senator Ryan, has said, the Minister, Deputy Lawless, has indicated to us that he is anxious to progress and deliver a level playing field with regard to borrowing for accommodation purposes akin to what the traditional universities have. I wish the witnesses good luck with their work.