Mary Hanafin (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

Not only did the context change in respect of the legislation, it also changed when the Dublin and Cork institutes of technology revitalised their applications. We also received a submission from the institutes of technology in general regarding a federal structure for Ireland. The one thing the Minister for Education and Science must do is protect the status and standard of higher education in Ireland. We witnessed what happened with the polytechnics in the UK and we want to ensure that does not happen here.

See this speech in context