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

It may be the only one that qualifies now, but this is legislation for the future. We have deliberately set the bar high because we want to protect the reputation of our universities and our higher education institutions in general. An institution must reach very high standards before it can use the title of university outside the country. The purpose of this provision is to ensure that those that do reach that standard can compete with institutions in other parts of the world, as the Senator mentioned, which can call themselves universities despite not reaching those standards. We have no control over what other states call universities. We can only control what happens with our own institutions. I am satisfied that the purpose is to do that and that the first group of amendments is designed to specifically address the concerns in this House that we need to be absolutely sure that this legislation would not be used inappropriately. It gives the Minister the power, if we do detect something that must be more tightly safeguarded, to do that, so it does address the concerns that were raised in that regard.