Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

This concerns amendment No. 25. This amendment makes explicit that if the new authority withdraws delegated authority to make an award in accordance with section 54, the programmes of education and training leading to that award shall be deemed to be validated under section 45. Therefore, the authority would assume award making responsibility for those programmes until and unless it withdraws validation of those programmes in accordance with section 47. The purpose of this is to ensure that withdrawal of delegated authority in respect of a programme or programmes does not necessarily result in the withdrawal of all awarding arrangements for that programme or programmes.