Averil Power (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I also support the remarks made by Senators Quinn, Barrett and Craughwell about their concerns about this Bill. Indeed I made such remarks myself on Committee Stage. It is clear to everybody here in this House that this is a Bill for the Royal College of Surgeons and it should say that. We should be up-front about what this Bill is actually designed to achieve. It is called the Education (Miscellaneous Provisions) Bill and 90% of the provisions relate to the Royal College of Surgeons so it is a bit of a farce to call it a miscellaneous Bill and not spell out what it is actually directed at.

I reiterate that I accept that the Royal College of Surgeons has a difficulty marketing itself abroad when it is competing against institutions from other countries that can call themselves universities when it cannot do so. However, our other institutions face exactly the same problem. The quality of the education provided by Dublin Institute of Technology, Waterford Institute of Technology and other institutes of technology is far superior to that offered by some institutions that can call themselves universities in the UK and other countries. This is not the right way to approach it. We have a strategy on the internationalisation of third-level education, much of which has not been implemented. There are other things we can do to make sure we are marketing our third-level institutions coherently and the quality of education but it must be done on a message of quality.

There is something deeply duplicitous about saying that an institution is not good enough or does not meet the criteria to be called a university in Ireland but that it is okay to sell it as a university to students in the US and Asia. Those students would be well within their rights to say "Hang on a second, why are you selling me one thing if you're not selling it to your Irish students on exactly the same basis?" It looks dodgy.

I accept that there is an issue that the Minister is trying to address but it is the wrong way of going about it. As has been pointed out, if a difficulty does arise, it reflects on the entire Irish education system and people will say that the way this came about is a bit weird and ask whether there is something odd about the fact that the institutes have been going through a long and painful process to get university status while another institution was able to get a Bill drafted just to deal with its specific concerns. This is a significant and deeply concerning departure in Irish education.

I would love to work with the Minister. I know the university Senators, Senator Craughwell and others would love to do so as well to find the right way to address this issue because I accept that the quality of the educational provision in the Royal College of Surgeons is top class. I have raised issues and concerns about human rights in the countries in which it operates but I do accept that the educational aspect of its degrees is probably far superior to that offered by medical schools elsewhere.

As I proposed last time, the way to deal with that is to develop a criteria specifically for a medical university for which it could qualify at home and abroad, without creating a special situation of having a university abroad but not at home. It is unfair and I object to that in the strongest possible terms.

Like Senator Quinn, I thought the matter would be addressed, given the dialogue we had across the House about some of our genuine concerns. We tabled amendments opposing the sections which refer to the RCSI and I have been told the House will not have an opportunity to vote on them because they have all been ruled out of order. Amendments Nos. 5, 13 to 15, inclusive, and 17 tabled by Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin have all been ruled out of order and we will not be able to vote on the individual section amendments we tabled. That is unfortunate, in terms of the democratic process in the House, and making sure everybody has an opportunity to brief themselves and vote accordingly during the debate.