David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

As Senator Grace O'Sullivan will be moving amendment No. 6, she should be given the same right. It does not matter.

Amendment No. 5 relates to section 9(1)(k)(iv) which sets out the functions of a technological university in "contributing to the promotion of the economic, cultural, social, scientific and technological development of the State", "respecting the diversity of values, beliefs and traditions in Irish society", "promoting critical and free enquiry, informed intellectual discourse and public debate within the technological university and in wider society" and "promoting an entrepreneurial ethos". I have nothing against entrepreneurship, but I make the point that the ethos deals with its underlying values. I have no difficulty with the first three items on the list, but they are separate individual ingredients, not the underlying values which should not be just entrepreneurial. If they are, the institution should go back to being a tech. We are talking about the real values of a university. To say the intellectual and moral ethos - the climate in which the university's intellectual life is conducted - should be merely entrepreneurial and nothing else is a complete and utter betrayal of what it means to be a university.My amendment seeks to do the following:

to delete all words from and including “functions—” in line 24 down to and including line 31 and substitute the following:“functions promoting an ethos that supports entrepreneurship, creativity, autonomy, innovation, and engaged citizenship,”.

I listed entrepreneurship first in deference to the Minister of State's obvious wishes but included the words "creativity, autonomy, innovation, and engaged citizenship”. My amendment lists those qualities and activities that are contained in the first three subsections. Nobody can say we have ignored those aspects. We have included them as part of the governing ethos or values of a university.

Does the Minister of State think entrepreneurship on its own is a sufficient statement of the values of a university, that is all entrepreneurship? What about free intellectual inquiry? What about academic freedom? What about all of the research projects that appear to go nowhere and were not entrepreneurial but simply intellectual inquiry? That is what a university is about. It is not about material end products. It is about intellectual inquiry and exploring the universe around us. If an entity is not doing that, then it is not a university, it is just an entrepreneurial set-up. I repeat that the word "ethos" is significant and paramount in this matter. We are talking about the underlying values of a university and, therefore, the ethos should be much broader than merely entrepreneurship. We are not that silly show called the "Dragons' Den". The Minister of State is trying to turn our universities into a collection of dragons' dens-----