Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Bill and agree with all of the positives everyone set out. I will skip on to the importance of the student voice within the technological universities. Through my experience sitting on the board of governance and the finance board of Trinity College Dublin, and through our student representatives on the academic council, I know how important that representative role is, as does the Minister of State. We must ensure that the experience in the new universities is the same as it is in the existing ones. We need a strong statutory footing for student representation, especially because in the flux of setting up these new institutions, the boards will need a constant and insistent student voice in all decision-making. After all, the students are the main stakeholders in this merger. I am not confident that the Bill, as drafted, allows for this. While the issue was discussed in detail in the Dáil, I am disappointed the Government was not able to accept any of the amendments proposed by Deputies Martin and Funchion. I am pleased to note that we have met recently and can move forward to discuss those amendments in the Seanad.We will see where it takes us then. There are three parts of the Bill where this is of particular concern. In section 2, the definition of students' union is of concern. The definition seems to allow for a technological university to recognise another student representative body apart from the designated students' union as a college's students' union. It is not hard to imagine that in a worst case scenario, during a disagreement between the university and its students' union over a particular issue, the university could simply decide to recognise another representative body as the recognised students' union in order to circumvent the disagreement and in the process cut the democratic and accountable voice of enrolled students out of the decision-making completely. I am not saying it will happen only that it is feasible that it could. It needs to be considered as we approach Committee Stage.