David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have four minutes. I will take two minutes and give the Minister two minutes to respond. There are a lot of questions.

I want to follow on from the question Deputy McGuinness asked about technological university status for the south east. The Minister stated that the Department is working on it and that he wants to see the matter progressed. Since 2011, when I was first elected to the Seanad, I have raised this issue on a monthly, if not sometimes a weekly, basis. It is now 2020 and we are still no closer to a resolution. People in the south east see other consortiums powering ahead. The south east is the only region without a university. There is an uneven playing field and that matter needs to be resolved. Whatever impediments or roadblocks are there, the Department and the Minister has to play a part in resolving them. A meeting is taking place tomorrow at my behest between local Oireachtas Members and the presidents of the two institutes. We will do our best at that meeting, but the Department has an obvious role to play.

There is also concern about the Munster consortium and whether there was a successful panel visit. We know there was a panel report for March and April 2019, and another potential report for February of this year. Questions are being asked about whether there was a successful panel report because the first report last year was quite critical of the application and said it did not meet the criteria in a range of areas. Legitimate questions are being asked about whether the consortium met the criteria or if the criteria were bypassed, which would be an incredible situation to find ourselves in.

The south-east consortium is very important for Munster and Waterford - the Minister should know that. For a region that lags behind economically, where we have one of the highest levels of unemployment, we need this. We should not have to come in here week after week, month after month, year after year, pleading the case and still being the only region without a university. I ask the Department to play its part to ensure the remaining issues are resolved.

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