Seán Kyne (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. I welcome the progress on the concept of the technological universities, which we have seen here in the TU in Dublin that was designated in January 2019 and also Munster Technological University, notwithstanding the name concerns that Senator Mullen has raised.

I wish to acknowledge the work of all of the officials in the Department.I also acknowledge my colleagues in government, ranging from Richard Bruton, Joe McHugh and Mary Mitchell O'Connor to the present Minister, Deputy Harris, and the Minister of State, Deputy Collins, for their work in continuing this very important area of change within the third level sector.

Cardinal Newman, who founded what became University College, Dublin, or UCD, felt that knowledge and learning should "be pursued for its own sake" in his essay The Idea of a University. One could say that the idea of a technological university should give rise to the pursuit of knowledge, science and technological research for all our sakes, which is central to the idea behind the concept. Rather than having institutes of technology working in isolation or competing, having them work together in one bigger institution in a region serving industry and community makes perfect sense. Different institutes of technology have different strengths and specialties to enable the cross-fertilisation of ideas so one large university brings benefits for all.

I am pleased to see that the Connacht-Ulster Alliance is making progress with the combination of the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology, GMIT, and the Institute of Technology Sligo, ITS. The initiative will create a university of scale across four campuses in Galway, Castlebar, Sligo and Letterkenny, and I am not forgetting the other very important places like Letterfrack where GMIT runs its furniture design college, and Mountbellew in the area of agriculture. The potential for such a university is immense. The strengths of each campus will complement each other to create a full range of studies across all fields, including: Letterkenny's specialised area in law and forensics; Sligo's specialty of online learning where it has approximately 3,000 distance learning students making it the largest online learning community in Ireland; and GMIT that offers courses in hotel management, the culinary arts, creative arts and nursing. These all combine to provide an extraordinary range of studies. Also for the west and north west there is technology, medical device innovation, tourism and arts. The Connacht-Ulster Alliance will support all of these sectors in a unique way, providing top-class graduates and creating centres of research like the innovation hub at GMIT.

The combination of the three institutes will open up opportunities to access research funding from Europe. The advantage of having an English speaking research partner post-Brexit must be attractive to other European institutions. We cannot just create a number of technological universities and leave them to their own devices when it comes to funding. We must resource them to allow them to survive and prosper. When opportunities arise to expand and develop, the Government cannot be found wanting. GMIT has had a long-running interest in acquiring additional land in Crowley Park that is near its campus in Galway. The HEA is engaging on that and I hope the acquisition can be supported.

We must continue to put the foundations in place. This is a long game so we must ensure that our technological universities are central to education, industry, research and community if they are to fulfil their potential. The relationship between the existing institutes of technology is very important. Hopefully, in the future it will be technological universities that work with business and play a hands-on role in providing the graduates that businesses want. That relationship in terms of designing courses, ensuring that students learn what is required to get them into positions in industry up and down the country is very important.

I acknowledge the work that has been done. I hope to see the application for the Connacht-Ulster technological university in the spring. I know there is work being done at the moment. It is not just throwing in an application but working with unions and student unions on organisational issues to ensure that this is part of the application, and that these issues do not cause problems, and unforeseen problems, when the technological university is in place. I welcome the progress that has been made to date. This is a very exciting area and one that will lead the charge in our third level community across this island for years to come.