Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will very briefly speak on amendment No. 16. This amendment basically seeks to extend the protection currently awarded to staff under this section to students. We had a detailed discussion on this on Committee Stage and unfortunately our amendment was not agreed at that time so we are raising it again today. It is important to ensure that students are given the same protections. As I said earlier, and at the risk of sounding like a broken record, a lot of this relates to students. We have heard a lot of talk about staff but not so much about students.

On amendment No. 23, it is currently at the discretion of the institution whether it chooses to involve students. We are calling for a legislatively set minimum level of student input into the academic council. Unfortunately, as the provision is currently worded, there could be a situation where a university decides that it is appropriate not to have any student involvement on the academic council. While people will say that will not be the case, one always comes across one or two scenarios where it might. I do not think it is too much to ask that we have not less than four representatives or 10% of the membership of the council, whichever is greater, nominated by the students' union in accordance with its own procedures. That is more than reasonable.

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