David Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I wish to make a brief comment with the indulgence of the Chair and the Minister. As I said, Sinn Féin is opposed to the Bill for a number of reasons. First, it is a little disingenuous to say the Bill is not about the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland being able to operate as a university outside the State and that this provision is open to all education providers, as I do not think that is the case. It is about the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland.

I wish to make the following point, about which I have spoken to the Minister. The Government side tabled an Adjournment motion on the matter. We have a number of applications for categorisation as technological universities. Such institutions are going through a painstaking process of having to meet criteria, which is as it should be. The criteria need to be set and the bar and benchmarks need to be set very high. One wants an institute to meet these targets to take its place among the top universities in the State, which is as it should be. The difficulty is that different rules are being applied to the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. Why is it not subject to the same level of scrutiny to which the institutes of technology and other institutions are subject in their quest to secure university status? That is a genuine concern.