Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit, Deputy Ciarán Cannon. Unfortunately, the last time we were seated together was at the funeral of former Deputy Nicky McFadden in Athlone last week. It is a pleasure to welcome the Minister of State and thank those who helped in preparing this Bill, including Dr. Charles Clarke, Ms Ursula Ní Choill, the staff of the Bills Office, the Cathaoirleach, the Leader and their assistants. A Bill does not just walk in here; it requires the work of a lot of people. I acknowledge my debt to them all.

Most famously associated with scholarship and later with universities are the founder of University College Dublin, John Henry Newman, and his seminal work The Idea of a University, which is widely quoted when people address this topic. There are two quotes I wish to put before the House, the first of which is, "to live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often." We realise there is a lot of thought on the issue we face today. The other quote is: “if we insist upon being as sure as is conceivable [...] we must be content to creep along the ground, and can never soar." We recognise we are addressing problems with at least two Bills coming from the Minister of State's Department and by way of the thoughts of the House. We are addressing matters such as the cost base, demoralisation and mistakes made in the United Kingdom. Many of our academic colleagues are seriously concerned about that. There is a need to preserve academic values, make students a priority and tackle excess costs where they arise. The template for the legislation is the 1997 Act. We are concerned about the growth of the budget and the maximisation of bureaucracy, regardless of outputs and the demoralisation problem we face.

There is a problem concerning financial accountability. The file from the Comptroller and Auditor General, reporting on universities, their costings and misallocations, etc., must be considered. There are reports from September 2010 and 2012. Very little evidence of outputs was found after a strategic investment plan worth €146 million. There was evidence of substantial overpayments of over €8 million to a small number of senior academics as recently as the time of the publication of the report in February 2012.

The Comptroller and Auditor General is a major assistant in the operation of the Parliament and he is an officer under the Constitution. We must respond to the reports. We must ensure that financial accountability and the probity of higher education and research institutions are preserved while at the same time enshrining the institutions' independence and that of their staff.

The Higher Education Authority, HEA, which we are seeking to reform today, dates from 1971. It acts as a regulator, advocate and funder for the higher education sector and most of the research sector. Life has evolved, however, and the model it is using is inconsistent with the legislation, practices and structures in continental Europe. The conflict is that the original remit of the authority did not include a clear requirement for cost-benefit analysis, capital project appraisal, demographic demand projection, economic impact studies and manpower requirements.

We seek to bring into existence a new body, a higher education and research grants committee, using existing resources to take over the funding remit of the HEA and provide a direct link between the Department of Education and Skills and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. When all of us came to the House after the economic collapse in 2008, we recognised the importance of the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. We want the strictest controls over the finances and as few controls as possible over autonomy and intellectual activity. Involving the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform is essential, just as it is essential to the Government's entire reform agenda. The Department responsible for transport would like to spend the entire GDP on transport projects but there has to be a counterweight. The body proposed is appropriate in this regard in the context of higher education. It is modelled on the UK University Grants Committee, which had a clear link to the Treasury. The proposed committee would report to the Minister for Education and Skills. It would have a membership of ten, with five members nominated by the Minister for Education and Skills and five by the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform.

We need to tackle the reports because there are so many pages that indicate the Comptroller and Auditor General had to investigate the excessive cost base.

That has had the effect of undermining the academic autonomy of the universities, which runs totally against the reason we have universities, as sources of diverse views, opinions and debate.

We involve the Comptroller and Auditor General and he plays an important role. One often wishes that he did not come into play until after the mistakes had been made but if we can involve the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, perhaps we can bring a system into financial transparency and autonomy. This will mean autonomy and academic freedom. The objectives of academic freedom for the sector, the institution and the individual academic are enshrined in legislation. Ireland has one of the most progressive declarations of academic freedom in Europe and the objective of the exercise is to protect the sector as well as individuals. Since 1997, there have been worrying moves towards turning higher education into a purely instrumentalist approach, where the Exchequer subsidises the creation of workers for the multinational sector and conjures up bright green nano bots that will add more to GNP than Google or an oil well. While it is important to ensure graduates are able to engage successfully with the labour market, the instrumental approach has undermined the civic, cultural and intellectual aims of higher education and research institutions in the island. This is a problem of demoralisation in the universities. That is why we are trying to separate the finance aspect. The institutes should have the utmost probity and be absolutely above board. After that, we should give freedom to people to have, for example, five people who see global warming as a serious problem debating five others who do not see it as a serious problem. That is not divisiveness but what universities should always do.

In economics, the concept of tenure was devised by the founding fathers of the American Economic Association when people were pressurised to stop publishing and lecturing in the late 19th century. Academic freedom and tenure allows people like Professor Morgan Kelly to speak truth to power where groupthink dominates. We tried to correct that, which is the result of the Cahill v.Dublin City University case. One of the earliest Irish members of the American Economic Association is more famous as a poet but was a distinguished economist, namely, John Kells Ingram, author of Who Fears to Speak of '98?. An eminent international economist, he was a nationalist poet working in the Unionist Trinity College. That was the kind of freedom of expression that was allowed and which we want to enshrine here. We want to make universities realise that the human capital of the university is the staff, with diverse views, opinions and contrast of ideas. In the words of J.M. Keynes, in the end it is ideas, for good or ill, that are powerful much more so than the power of vested interests.

I mentioned Professor Morgan Kelly as a dissident and someone not subject to groupthink. He might not have been hired by the Department of Finance but it was absolutely vital for the country that he was hired by UCD. I am delighted he was my student at one stage. That is what universities must do; they are not part of the Civil Service. That is what we are trying to protect in this Bill.

We should be aware of the demoralisation in the UK and Australian systems. We will be attempting to get better value for money and to restore morale. That is the purpose of legislation. It is important that the interest groups and the pressure groups that have traditionally dominated the area have a response from the Parliament. I am particularly keen that university Senators should play a role in assisting the Minister in the task of reform.