Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 8:

In page 16, line 11, after “purpose,” to insert the following:“and at least one of whom has expertise and/or experience in representing the interests of students, nominated by the student union,”.

Senator Ruane had hoped to be here today to speak on the amendment as she has strong feelings on this issue. Amendments Nos. 8 and 11 are variations on the issue we raised on Committee Stage around ensuring that there is a strong student voice on the governing boards of technological universities. Unfortunately, our previous amendments on increasing the number of student representatives on governance boards were ruled out of order as they may have incurred a charge on the State. We have now adopted a different approach that recognises a different way in which the interests of students can still be appropriately represented in how the universities are governed and it may even be an improved way.

We need to give the student voice statutory protection in how it contributes to the management of the universities. Student unions in the new universities will be just that - new - and they will not be able to benefit from the decades of institutional knowledge and experience built up in existing student unions in current universities. Our amendments rectify this and try to ensure that among those external representatives on the governance boards of the new universities there will be at least one external individual who has expertise or experience in representing the interests of students in previous university governance scenarios. The individual could be a former student union officer or representative in one of the constituent colleges or institutes of technology. He or she could also be someone who has experience in a different university context or perhaps even an international university context. We believe that our amendment would ensure that the officers of a new student union would have an expert and experienced yet independent and external voice on the governing body to support them in representing the interests of students and to ensure that student interests were properly considered in matters of governance.

This is a constructive and helpful amendment. It has the endorsement of the Union of Students in Ireland. I hope the Minister of State will be able to accept it and assuage some of the concerns, which we have previously discussed, of unions around the strength of their voice in the governance of the new universities.

In a further amendment I will come back in on the Bologna Process which the Minister of State will be aware commits to the importance of student representation also.