Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I ask the Senator to let me explain. There will now be a university offering in Waterford, Carlow and Wexford, all joined as a consortium. Students will be able to choose whether they want to go to a university in their own region. The last time we debated this issue, Senator Coffey pointed out strongly that many students never come back. That was pointed out to me strongly when I served as Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. That message was loud and clear when I had the great pleasure of going to Waterford to open new companies there. Standards will be maintained and will improve. We will have more students. The consortium will have approximately 14,500 students. There will be a competing offering for students to continue on and do their master's degrees and, if they so wish and they attain the requisite standards, to go on and do their PhDs. Quite honestly, we have moved on. I know Waterford Institute of Technology is very good. I am certainly not taking from it or from the Institute of Technology, Carlow. I am not going to be a judge, like Solomon, deciding between them here. We have gone along the road. We have done all the consultation with the different stakeholders. I believe we have a number of consortiums that are going to apply for technological university status in the coming months. When they do so, they will have to prove their eligibility. It is not a given. They will have to show they come up to the standards. I assure the House that I want high standards. I want our students to be able to stand on the international stage, or our national stage, and be able to get jobs that are just as good as the jobs of their international peers.