Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

On the front of today's edition of The Irish Times, it is reported that a top level report has urged a merger of Trinity College and UCD. It states the report was prepared without consultation with the colleges themselves and the panel worked solely on the basis of a portfolio of information and statistics about Irish higher education. The chairman of the group states modestly on his website that he was once the rector magnificus of a Dutch university, a university ranked 159 places behind Trinity College on the QS index, 83 places behind on the Times Higher Education index, and ranked only 11th among Dutch universities. The University of Aarhus is mentioned, and we are also ahead of it.

This follows the Hunt report, which brought in an American, whose college is ranked 61 places behind TCD, and involved a Finnish university ranked 245 places behind Trinity. I welcome the interest of the Leader in these matters and the fact the Minister for Education and Skills is due to come to the House, but could I ask for that visit to be facilitated? The mischief-making by the Higher Education Authority, HEA, against those who do the work in Irish universities has got to stop. I will give the HEA some information. Senators Bacik and Norris and I represent some 90,000 graduates in 130 countries, our external examiners report all the time on the high standards of our degrees and school leavers have made us the number one choice. Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Princeton and Yale take our best people into their graduate schools and there is a low rate of unemployment among the other graduates.

It is about time the Minister got a grip on the Higher Education Authority for publishing such shoddy work with such damaging consequences for Irish education. We are here to serve this country and we will continue to do so splendidly. We have had enough slipshod analysis by people who never talked to anyone who works in the lecture halls. I estimate 140 alleged experts have been flown into this country to report on Irish education and they have neither attended nor given a lecture. The rector may have been magnificus but how come his college was not? We rank higher and we will defend that. If the Higher Education Authority continues to attack us, we have one old slogan - no surrender - and we will say it to those people. They do not know what they are talking about, they do not consult and they are damaging Irish education.