Marc MacSharry (Fianna Fail)

I call on the Leader for a debate on data protection. I am a member of the Committee on Finance and the Public Service and yesterday the Criminal Assets Bureau and the Irish Fraud Bureau attended a meeting of the committee. It is clear that in our effort to preserve a level of civil liberties we are impeding upon the ability of CAB and the Irish Fraud Bureau to access the level of information required to fight crime in the manner in which it has evolved. We may need to revisit this matter. We all want to preserve the highest standards in terms of civil liberties but there are ways in which we can deal with access. One example is the use of the electoral register and other aspects of data protection which can assist the Garda, the Irish Fraud Bureau and others in their work. A debate on that would be most welcome.

I agree with Senator Walsh on the need for a debate on the media. We must be conscious that there is now very little reporting in the media. There are more papers and television and radio shows which have views rather than actual reporting, to the extent that one can only go to sources such as text television to read actual reporting and make one's own decision on the facts rather than reading a series of interpretations of the facts. It would be very healthy for us to have that debate.

I agree and disagree with Senator Norris and others. I welcome the setting up of a task force of our higher academic minds who would come together in the interests of bringing this country forward. It would be vital in any debate that, as with the aspirations of our debate of the previous evening, we would include other third level institutions, not just the Dublin Institute of Technology and the University of Limerick but also the many institutes of technology throughout the country. The nation as a whole has suffered from the elitism within higher levels of third level education where individual universities and institutes of technology have been protectionist and overly competitive in not wanting others to be allowed to research a particular area while they secured the resources for themselves.

Another interesting point would be to tease out the level of expenditure, resources allocated by universities or the level of public money that is given to procure public relations agencies to ensure professors and assistant professors are on the appropriate television or radio shows. My information is that there is quite a considerable amount of it. Let us have that debate, make it all-inclusive and move away from elitism. We should ensure that even though the name of the university is internationally recognised as being in the top 200, we get the best graduates and information. All too often, they are not just in Harvard or the Ivy League; they could be in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I would like to think the Sligo Institute of Technology and many others throughout the country have as much to offer as anybody in Trinity or UCD.