Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister. He did well to get back on all of those amendments. I wish to make a couple of points. The Minister is right that we support this Bill. I very much acknowledge the point made by him on grants. The announcement earlier this year was very welcome in that we will not being going down the loans route. Our amendment were to protect and enhance the public nature of the higher education system and the reason we believe that is important was best exemplified by Senator Malcolm Byrne's response, where he clearly has no problem with an enhanced role for the private sector in education. That is fine and is an ideological difference between us. We believe in enhancing the public role ahead of the private role. Parties on the right, which traditionally support privatisation and outsourcing, like Fianna Fáil, take a very different view. That is why I highlighted the fact that one third of our teachers are now being produced via a private for-profit teaching college. To me, that is not the way to go and is a prime example of the commodification of third level education. That is not the way we should go.That is an ideological difference between us - a left-right difference.

I appreciate that the Minister has said there is a problem with precarious work. It is important that he acknowledged this because Senator Dolan did not do so. Anyone involved in third level education knows there is a massive problem with precarious work, people having short-term contracts and having those contracts terminated. It is a major disincentive to their staying in the system. That is why we wanted to include the clause about decent pay and good working conditions for academics, including PhD researchers, a very important area which is really not working as it should be at the moment, and non-academic staff in designated institutions of higher education. Those are my points, but I do welcome some of the responses from the Minister.