Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senators again for their very helpful contributions in these amendments. I will come to the latter ones in a couple of minutes. In terms of the term "marketing", the central purpose is education rather than marketing. The reason the universities want to use the title is so they can identify to students outside of Ireland the high standard that they reach in terms of the degrees and doctorates that they award. If one likes, to market is the reason they want to use the title or why they would like to use the title outside the State.

I want to explain a little about the word "persons" . This comes into amendments Nos. 7 and 8. My officials have consulted again with the parliamentary draftsman in relation to this word "persons" to confirm that "person" is the appropriate legal term, although we might see person as maybe not appropriate. However, it is the appropriate legal term for an institution or other body in this context as provided for under the Interpretation Act 2005. Part 4 of the Act provides for the general rules of construction in an enactment and section 18(c) states that "'Person' shall be read as importing a body corporate (whether a corporation aggregate or a corporation sole) and an unincorporated body of persons, as well as an individual, and the subsequent use of any pronoun in place of a further use of 'person' shall be read accordingly". Therefore, the Interpretation Act 2005 defines the general use of certain terminology in legislation. That is why we use the term "person". It has an understanding within law, as defined in that particular Act. That is to explain why "person" is deemed to be the most appropriate language to use.

I want to give a definite commitment that I will bring forward an amendment with regard to the Senators' proposed amendment No. 12. I fully understand the Senators' concern to protect the names of the Irish universities. I propose to bring forward a Government amendment on Committee Stage in the Dáil to ensure that where the description "university" is being used as part of a title of an institution, the Minister will have to approve that usage. My officials are engaging with the draftman as to the most appropriate wording to use in that regard. I thank Senators Barrett and Quinn for that.

The Senators were also concerned that we would publish the observations of An tÚdarás. That is dealt with in their amendment No. 11. They suggested that the observations of An tÚdarás should be published. My understanding is that An tÚdarás will simply be saying, "you qualify" or "you do not qualify". Its observations will be fairly straightforward. It is a yes or a no. Detail will not be given in the observations. Nevertheless, I will look to see if we can incorporate that request as well.