Sean Barrett (Independent)

I was pleased when Senator Jim D'Arcy raised the issue of the Minister for Education and Skill's annoyance with the university heads for their failure to respond. The problem has to do with the Trade Descriptions Act and perhaps the cartel legislation. The problem is that Irish Universities Association does not represent anybody who lectures in Irish universities. It is the Conference of Heads of Irish Universities with a new label. They would not know anything about those who come from schools into first year lectures because it is so long since they have given a lecture. The Minister has made a mistake in unwittingly giving them this status. Their view that the leaving certificate was not a suitable qualification to attend university was not based on direct experience and their failure to respond is understandable because literally they do not know what they are talking about. What I hear from examiners from outside Ireland - as recently as Thursday of last week - is that the standard of students is excellent by international standards and that the level of attention in lectures and the care received in a pastoral sense are way above the international average. As Senator Ivana Bacik and I said a few weeks ago, the points system and the CAO were invented by Professor William Watts who came from a humble background in Athy, County Kildare. He devised it because any other system would be based on influence and he did not want entry to higher education to be based on a system which would be open to such manipulation. There are too many quangos in the higher education sector which speak regularly. However, they do not represent the views of those of us who actually do the work, are proud to do it, proud of the young people who come to us from second level and very proud of how good their degrees are when they graduate. The Minister, as a noted democrat, really needs a new communications strategy to consult the people who actually give lectures and would be able to reassure him on many of the points about which he is concerned. In this instance, he is asking the wrong people.

I share the concerns expressed by Senator Jim D'Arcy about overpayments at the highest level. This discredits the entire sector. One should not seek to be a millionaire at any level of the education sector. It is a service to the younger members of our society and we are proud to serve them on that basis.