Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin Bay North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

My amendments are Nos. 14, 15, 17, 18 and 50. Amendment No. 14 states, under the broad heading of "Academic freedom", that "Nothing in this Act shall be construed as modifying or restricting the principle of academic freedom as provided for in section 14 of the Universities Act 1997.” Amendment No. 15 inserts on page 16 between lines 3 and 4 "support and recognise the application of the principle of academic freedom", and we feel strongly that the principle of academic freedom needs to be implicit throughout the Bill. Amendment No. 17 attempts on page 17, line 4 after "frameworks" to insert “support the autonomy [as has been said previously] and decision-making capacity of designated institutions of higher education". Amendment No. 18 is to insert the line "to freely express its views on matters concerning the higher education sector". The principle of autonomy and academic freedom is central to what we are trying to achieve in the language we want to insert in the Bill. We spoke a lot about this on Committee Stage, where, as the Minister said, we had a progressive and constructive interchange. Amendment No. 50 inserts:

(6) Nothing in this section shall be construed as permitting an interference with the autonomous capacity of each designated institution of higher education to determine— (a) which courses and programmes it develops and maintains, or

(b) the number of students that will be accommodated on any course or programme or within each designated institution of higher education.”.

Again, the autonomy of individual institutions and academic freedom are the main points in all those amendments.

See this speech in context