Seanad debates

Thursday, 23 July 2020

Ministers and Secretaries (Amendment) Bill 2020: Second Stage

 

10:30 am

Photo of Rónán MullenRónán Mullen (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Guím gach rath ar an Aire Stáit nua. I wish him very well in his work. Somebody once said that if one thinks education is expensive, one should try ignorance. It is important that we get our education policy right. As other speakers have said, investment in education is absolutely critical. We are all aware of the funding crisis at third level. Looking at what this legislation seeks to bring about with regard to the establishment of a new Department, however, I ask whether the business case has been made for its establishment. What does the Government hope to achieve with regard to higher education through this change that it has not been able to achieve under the previous arrangement?

There are 126 pages in the programme for Government but only a page or so relates to higher education. As has been said, higher education has been represented at the Cabinet over the last three years by the former Minister of State, Mary Mitchell O'Connor. We have gone from three Ministers with responsibility for education to four, comprising two full Cabinet Ministers and two Ministers of State. That is the same as we had in 2007, during the Bertie Ahern era. At that time, we had one senior Minister and three junior Ministers.

The establishment of new Departments and the appointment of Ministers does not solve problems in and of itself. One consequence can be the creation of a silo mentality in respect of particular areas and policy problems. This can sometimes make matters worse. Did the creation of the Department of Children and Youth Affairs in 2011 solve the various intractable problems it set out to solve? Childcare is still a major issue which presents major challenges. There continue to be shocking failures of oversight and management in Tusla. The abolition of that Department was widely mooted during the recent coalition negotiations but it was saved from the axe by intensive negotiations and lobbying by various interest groups that may, perhaps, benefit from associated funding.

To create this new Department for higher education, several Ministers have had to be assigned multiple Departments. In fact, the three Green Party Ministers now have responsibility for the equivalent of five separate Departments between them while the Ministers, Deputies Foley and Harris, share what was a single Department which is now to be split in two.Is that really a model for good and efficient government? Does it make sense in and of itself? I am not so sure. I am not sure the case has been made that it does.

I would like to use the time remaining to me to speak about some other issues facing higher education. As Senator Bacik, Senator McDowell and others have said, the situation with regard to third level funding is serious and has been for a long time, more than 15 years at this point. The Cassells report, which has been mentioned by a number of speakers, showed the scale of the crisis. In January, the provost of Trinity College, Dr. Patrick Prendergast, described the problem as a time bomb. He said that an extra €1 billion would be needed by 2030.

This programme for Government promises to "Develop a long-term sustainable funding model for Higher Level education in collaboration with the sector and informed by recent and ongoing research and analysis." The 2016 programme for Government included a similar promise and proposed that the relevant cross-party Oireachtas committee would outline a proposed funding plan for this sector. There has not been a whole lot of concrete progress. A relevant question for the new Ministers is how the establishment of this Department will help to lead to the action that is needed.

To move to an issue on which I have spoken in the past, I believe there is a need for a more generous and courageous debate on whether students should make some form of contribution towards the cost of their own third level education, perhaps though income-contingent loans, which was one of the suggestions made in the Cassells report. In many cases, students are already taking out loans at high interest rates to pay for their third level education. The idea of replacing this with a State-backed income-linked system is at least worthy of discussion. There is an argument that this would give students more of a direct buy-in to their own academic progress and give them a sense of the value of the resource they are accessing. It may give them an incentive to succeed and do well. It might assist those who find themselves outside the threshold for Student Universal Support Ireland, SUSI, grants.

I do not claim to have any monopoly on wisdom with regard to this or any other issue. I am open to considering and discussing other courses of action to address this problem but I would like to see progress made on issues such as this and debate on these matters. I would like to see a fair and detailed consideration of such ideas. As politicians, we should not engage in partisan or ideological point-scoring or compete for likes or retweets in respect of issues such as these. The issues are too serious and need to be searched through thoroughly. There is more I could say but I am conscious that I am over time.

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