Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State is very welcome. I thank her for coming to the House. Sinn Féin has supported and will continue to support the Bill. Merging institutes of technology has the potential to enhance regional development and build stronger and more dynamic academic institutions. I pay tribute to the staff and students of the institutes of technology who have borne the brunt in recent years of chronic underfunding, lack of resources and staff shortages. They have strived to achieve their institutes' academic objectives, retained a working level of quality and created valued graduates. This has been in the face of a Government policy of indifference in the third-level sector. Students and staff alike have seen funding and access levels brought beyond critical point and strived on regardless. I stress, as did my Sinn Féin colleague, Deputy Jonathan O'Brien, on Second Stage in the Dáil in 2015, that all the efforts of institute of technology amalgamation will be in vain if staff continue to be underresourced and students fail to get fair and achievable access to third level.

While I appreciate the scale of the operation proposed, the streamlining of individual institutes of technology into single structures must be a robust process involving constant consultation with staff, students and their respective unions rather than one dictated by the Department, the HEA and college management. There are particular concerns about the definition of "student union". The proposed wording in the Bill suggests that a student union must be recognised by its respective technological university in order to retain legitimacy. This fails to value the longstanding histories of student unions, the mandate they receive from their students to represent them and their right to autonomy. The proposed definition sets a bad precedent and could lead to instances in which technological university management could disregard the validity of a student union. I am interested to hear the Minister of State's thoughts on this. She meets regularly with the Union of Students in Ireland, which is particularly concerned about this. I have met members of Technical University for Dublin student unions who have similar concerns. As a trade union official for over ten years, I could not sign up to this. It does not sit well that the university can decide whether the student union has standing. The teaching unions would not agree to that and the student union should not have lesser standing. It is not helpful in terms of where we all want to go, especially as we want to support the Bill. There were strong feelings among the students and their representatives who we met last week and I hope that we can work together across the Chamber to achieve consensus.

I am concerned that the proposed Bill does not guarantee parity of esteems for student unions in terms of representation on governing bodies and academic councils. Student unions offer representation at key decision-making levels from the largest body within a university or institute of technology. It could be argued that students represent the largest cohort within a college and that their union has received the most legitimate mandate to speak as a representative body. To fail to give them fair representation denies this and devalues students as a whole.

A number of amendments on this matter, which were tabled by my colleague, Deputy Funchion, were declared out of order in the Dáil. They sought to increase the number of seats at the table for students. I ask the Minister of State to revisit the point. More seats at the table will not impose a cost on the State. They will not cost the State anything financially. Anyone who has had any experience of a governing body will know that. I ask the Minister of State to consider this properly moving forward and to propose amendments which provide for effective student representation as set out in the HEA's own best-practice policies.

I commend the Minister of State and the Department on their engagement with the TUI to strike an agreement and address the key concerns of staff. On behalf of Sinn Féin, I note that we will not support amendments or aspects of the Bill which may seek to diminish what has already been agreed by the Department and the TUI. Hopefully, it will not come to that. Sinn Féin is supportive of the Bill and its objectives but we stress that the student voice does not have parity in the proposed new structure. Agreements similar to those concluded with the TUI can be struck with students. It requires a desire on the part of the Department to give students that equal say. I appeal to the Minister of State's colleagues in the Department to have a further look at this. I think they will find that there is a broad consensus in the Chamber on the matter.

Sinn Féin agrees with the idea of technological universities, but in its current form the legislation raises some concerns. We retain the right to bring forward amendments to address these matters on Committee Stage and will withdraw support for the Bill if these are not addressed adequately.