Mary O'Rourke (Fianna Fail)

——but perhaps he does not have to do so as he can have five minutes at the end. I apologise for having to go into the matter in a convoluted way. I thank the Acting Chairman for his patience and the House for allowing the change. We will of course not finish the Private Members' motion until 7.15 p.m. which will push everything on, as the Hepatitis C Compensation Tribunal (Amendment) Bill will then be taken.

I am pleased to speak on the Bill. While listening to the monitor in my office I was delighted to hear the many varied and learned contributions made on the Bill. It is right that it should be so. Everyone who spoke had his or her own take on the matter. I remember Senator Fitzgerald, Deputy Carey and the Minister, Deputy Hanafin, coming to see me in regard to the City of Dublin VEC and all of the other colleges involved. I am very au fait with the institutes of technology and the component colleges of the Dublin Institute of Technology. In the 1970s I was the first chairman of the board of management of the then Athlone Regional Technical College. I was pleased to hold this position because it gave me a great insight into the operation of the colleges. They were building upon the recommendations in the OECD report and the Investment in Education report, published in the 1960s, which laid out what Ireland must do if it was to take its proper role on the world stage in terms of technical and other types of education.

As time moved on, the colleges continued to grow and I recall enormous efforts by the Department during my time as Minister to curb that growth. However, I always believed this expansion was positive. Step by step, they provided certificates, diplomas, degrees and eventually post-graduate qualifications. Regardless of any restrictions that the Department, acting according to its own lights, wished to put on their growth, the colleges, like Alice in Wonderland, "grew and grew".

There was great competition between the various colleges. As Senator Quinn remarked, the regional dimension was important. My late brother told me the story of how the facility at Letterkenny became an institute, even though it was not included in the original map of institutes. The worthy Neil Blaney kicked and kicked, however, and secured its status. This struck me strongly as Senator McHugh spoke. Athlone, on the other hand, was well provisioned in the middle of the country to acquire the status of institute.

I do not share Senator Quinn's view that the technical colleges had a sense of inferiority relative to the universities. I always considered them to be fine institutions. As a university graduate myself, it never struck me that the institutes of technology were in any way inferior in terms of the education they provided and the status of the qualifications they conferred.