David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The original amendment referred to "functions promoting an ethos that supports entrepreneurship, creativity, autonomy, innovation and engages citizenship". The new amendment includes all of the elements, including those towards which the Minister pointed us. Amendment No. 6a reads:

In addition to the entrepreneurial elements as well as education and research a technological university shall acknowledge as a fundamental moral and intellectual foundation for the teaching and research practice an ethos that supports creativity, autonomy, intellectual inquiry, innovation and engage citizenship.

We acknowledge in the new amendment entrepreneurial elements, as well as education and research. However, it states - this is the point we argued in the previous discussion - that, in addition, universities would acknowledge that an ethos represented a fundamental intellectual and moral basis on which a university operated and underpinned all of its intellectual activity. It reads, "a technological university shall acknowledge, as a fundamental moral and intellectual foundation for the teaching and research practice an ethos that supports creativity, autonomy, intellectual inquiry, innovation and engaged citizenship". It seems to be difficult to disengage from this definition or avoid a situation where the fundamental principles underlying a university are enunciated in a Bill establishing it. This appears to be an important and critical matter. I will make a further contribution when the Minister of State responds, but this is a fundamental aspect of the Bill. It would be regrettable if the Government was to find itself unable to accept the amendment, particularly as it takes into account the remarks made by the Minister of State in the previous debate.