Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State, Deputy Mitchell-O'Connor, has said the purpose of the Bill is to further empower QQI as a regulator of quality and strengthen the agency's role in ensuring high standards across Ireland's education system. The Bill will also enable QQI to clarify, strengthen and make more efficient the operation of existing policies, which is welcome. However, the second key provision relates to the examination of the bona fides and financial capacity of providers.

As part of strengthening QQI's quality assurance procedures, the Bill seeks to provide a legal basis for it to examine the bona fides and financial capacity of the providers with which it engages. This will enable it to assess a provider's capacity to provide programmes of education and training consistent with the quality assurance processes and procedures required by the 2012 Act.

As we know, a substantial amount of this Bill was only brought forward after a 2015 High Court decision relating to the lack of protections for students attending English language schools here. It is necessary, as that case and others proved so damaging to our reputation. We pride ourselves on enticing students from across the world to learn English here. It is so sad when the trust of those students is abused, after they have paid considerable sums and are here on the basis that they will learn English on a quality course. It is clear to many of us, including the Minister of State and her officials, that some of these operations were doomed to failure and would be unable to continue. They were not based on proper foundations and were bound to fail. That is very damaging for the English-language students and gives them a bad taste of our country, which is a nation of hospitable people. We must condemn such providers who threw those people to the wolves and just left them. In many cases, the Department of Employment Affairs and Social Protection and voluntary groups had to try to support them while they were here without payments or accommodation, or access to what they came here for, which was to get a knowledge of the English language in the schools which they believed were reputable when they signed up for their courses.

I understand that this sector is worth €1.58 billion to the economy which is not small money. However, while protecting students is to be admired, I seek clarity on some issues. As ever, we cannot use a sledgehammer to crack a chestnut and we must think of all the different aspects, tentacles and far-reaching consequences of strong measures to protect and safeguard those students while we bring those schools under legislation. For example, I still have concerns which Senator Gallagher raised in the Seanad debate on the Bill. These remain to be fully clarified. There it was noted that the Bill makes several positive contributions, for example, by improving protections for English language students, providing greater powers to tackle cheating, introducing new powers to recognise private colleges and giving institutes of technology the power to confer degrees. That said, concerns were raised about whether the proposed supports under the learner protection fund, LPF, would see the State step in to act as an insurer for private language schools. Will the Minister of State clarify that this would not lead to a potential cost to the State? I share the concern raise by Senator Ruane who pointed out the possible impact on the new learner protection fund on smaller community education projects and organisations. It is here, for those smaller providers or smaller voluntary entities which need to be protected that my concerns lie.

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