Grace O'Sullivan (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The Bill is unclear in respect of whether technological universities will be allowed to use the word "university" in their titles. It is clearly the Minister's intention that these new institutions can have the certainty to be able to market themselves as technological universities. The legislation should give effect to the Minister's intentions.

Without this amendment, future Ministers might limit the ability of a new technological university to market itself as a university. It would be simply intolerable if an institution having merged and brought its community through the changes to become a technological university was subsequently denied the right to refer to itself as a university. Furthermore, the amendment limits the power of the Minister to impose a name on a technological university against its wishes. The Minister and the institution have to consent to the name. This is simply a matter of good practice.

Our existing universities spend a small fortune on branding and marketing. The branding expression of these new institutions will not be trivial. Therefore, it is vital that the institution and the Minister have a meeting of minds over the final name, a name that is appropriate and fitting and one that gives the new technological universities the best start in life as universities.

We have plenty of examples in which the names of educational facilities have been impinged on due to politics, including Austin Waldron Regional Technical College in Carlow and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, as I mentioned in the previous debate. Other examples include the rebranding of Maynooth University from NUI Maynooth, the rebranding of the University of Dublin to Trinity College Dublin and so on.

While I accept the good intention of the Minister of State in this regard, protections must be included in the words of the Act.It is clear that the Bill could give rise to circumstances in which an institution that had gone through the merger process would be denied the use of the word "university" in its title. In Waterford we know how hard people have fought to prevent us from getting our hands on the word "university". I ask the Minister of State to accept the amendment.