David Norris (Independent) | Oireachtas source

On 8 June 2021, the President of Ireland, Michael D. Higgins, stated:

It is not an overstatement, I believe, to make the argument that the ruination of the university tradition, by a process of attrition, surrender to the quiet hegemony of that which is really unaccountable, is at hand. Indeed the very raison d'êtreof the university, I believe, is at stake.

That is a very interesting quotation from the President of Ireland. There has been an enormous increase in the number of students, something I have noticed myself. When I was studying at Trinity College, there were 2,000 students; now there are almost 20,000, a tenfold increase. Of course, that is in parallel with the general trend for the increase in numbers receiving a university education.

This is a large and complex Bill of more than 140 pages. I am very pleased we have in the Public Gallery my distinguished colleague from Trinity College, Sean Barrett, pro-chancellor and former distinguished Member of this House, who has been very helpful in preparing me for this legislation. The US Supreme Court interpreted the royal charters and letters patent of Dartmouth College in 1819 as prohibiting the interference of the Governor of New Hampshire in the governance of the college because charters are binding in perpetuity, including in the post-independence US, but the Minister has refused the request of my distinguished colleague, Sean Barrett, to place the document in the library and I ask him now why he refused to do so.

This is access to information and information informs debate - that is what it is for. In addition, the Government cannot dismember a charter foundation and we promised not to do so under the Belfast-Good Friday Agreement, which respects diversity of tradition and identities. I have heard a lot of blather from the Minister about diversity and so on but he has shown no respect for it. The Bill assumes the Trinity College Dublin, TCD, charters and letters patent can be altered as in the Bill. The contrary case is that the charters and letters patent are binding in perpetuity on both the monarch, in the case of the United Kingdom, and successors and on the bodies in receipt of the charters.Trinity has a distinct diversity of identities, which should be respected. The Minister is smiling away happily, but I do not know why. Perhaps he is enjoying and appreciating my eloquence.