John Paul Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

At the outset, I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Niall Collins, and the work his Department has done since its establishment. In many respects, that seems like a long time ago, because of Covid-19 and everything that has happened in the intervening time. The Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science has really hit the ground running. This legislation is evidence of that. I agree with some of the points Deputy Richmond made, although they might not directly relate to this legislation. He mentioned in passing the emphasis now being placed on apprenticeships. I welcome that as well as the fact that we have record numbers, because we have never needed them more. I welcome also that apprenticeships are being properly presented by the Department as a viable, worthwhile and important career path for many of our young people.

I speak as somebody who had the opportunity to go to third level, and, as Deputy Richmond said, it was a few years ago now. I also speak as a child of parents who never even got to go to secondary school. The transformation that has happened in the last 20 or 30 years has been huge. We have third level institutions dispersed throughout the length and breadth of the country, although they are not in every county. There is not one in my county, and this goes back to some political decision that was made before I was born and it still causes some ire. However, they are accessible in all their forms. This has been a huge source of economic, cultural and social success for Ireland, particularly in the last 20 or 30 years. The fact is that people from all sorts of backgrounds can aspire to attend third level and pursue a course of education or study that they wish to pursue. That is not the case in many countries. It is too often taken for granted, by some people at least, in this country.

I want to speak specifically on the technological universities. One of the Minister of State, Deputy Niall Collins’s predecessors, the former Minister of State, Mary Mitchell O'Connor, brought through the legislation to allow for their establishment. Throughout the regions we have seen the impact the institutes of technology, and before them the regional technical colleges, have made in terms of students from geographic areas and limited economic backgrounds being able to aspire to attend third level and to gain third level qualifications. The technological university development is the logical next step in that.

Deputy Richmond and others referred to the fact that Irish third level institutions have good standing internationally, given the teaching that takes place within them. I speak about my own region, the south east. One of the things that always struck me in my almost 20 years in the Oireachtas was that, as a region, it was not always seen to be at the forefront of economic deprivation or of underachievement and yet the south-east region has until now continuously had the lowest levels of third level attendance. It had the lowest levels of disposable household income. For some reason, Wexford and some of the other counties within the region have traditionally always lagged way behind. That is part of the reason I welcome the technological universities. Wexford is very much included in the proposal for the for the south-east university development, as is my constituency of Carlow-Kilkenny. That is crucially important if we are to improve the quality of life and the standard of living.

The purpose for which we are elected to this House is to represent the people who put us here and we are here to make their lives a little bit better. For too long, the south-east region has been without a university. That has affected our national economic statistics because so many of our students leave the region to go to Dublin or to Cork or to leave the country and never to come back. That is why the technological university is so important. At least it will give more of them the opportunity, hopefully, to stay within the region as well as to economically boost the region into the future.

To wear my particular Kilkenny parochial colours, I spoke earlier about apprenticeships. The Kilkenny Education and Training Board, ETB, is examining the provision of a new apprenticeship centre and the ETB and the local authority are looking at the possibility of providing a campus facility in Kilkenny for the new university of the south east. As Covid has shown us probably more than anything, the reality of it is that the university of the future will not be a granite building just down the street. This is not to say that Trinity College Dublin will not survive and thrive into the future. However, the modern methods of education will require new types of university. Remote education will be, and is already for many institutes, a fact of life. It will become a bigger one. That is why, while it is now possible for students to learn from a distance, it is also important that there would be some physical presence around the country. I say that specifically in relation to the university in the south east.

I welcome and support the legislation. I want to finish by again sincerely commending the Department and the Ministers involved on the efforts they have made in the difficult few years since the Department has been established.

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