Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)

This has all the hallmarks of a decision the Minister was bounced into taking. Since he made it, he has been back-tracking all the time. The Minister carried out no consultation whatsoever with the constituent colleges of the NUI before the decision was taken. He freely admits this decision will not save money. The McCarthy report outlined a saving of €3 million but the Minister has put on record already that this is not true because the Department does not provide a subvention to the NUI to the tune of €3 million per year. Now, the Minister has produced the argument that this is connected with the new quality assurance agency, which we all support in principle. However, there was never any difficulty with the NUI working with any of the existing agencies when it came to quality.

Will the Ministers justify to the House the decision taken in the context in which he asked Dr. Hunt and his colleagues to report to him soon in terms of the future of higher education in Ireland? Would it not be a more sensible arrangement to wait to see exactly what Dr. Hunt comes up with from that expert group review, rather than allow the Minister's officials to bounce him into making this decision?

See this speech in context