Paul Gavan (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will speak to amendments Nos. 102 and 117. I welcome the Minister. It is good to see him. I am standing in for my colleague, Senator Warfield.

Sinn Féin has engaged extensively, as have the Minister and others on the committee, with this sector in recent months. It is clear that the management of every institution has accepted the need for the highest standard of transparency and accountability over public finances. That is beyond question, and the Government will always have our support for any policy that achieves this, but there are many proposals in the Bill that reduce the autonomy of institutes without any clear relationship with transparency or accountability. I have yet to hear or see a convincing justification for dictating such rigid governance structures, for example, the mandatory 19-member limit on governing bodies. The Technological Universities Act 2018 allows for a governing authority of between 22 and 26 members. The Minister has changed his position on the number since the general scheme of this Bill was issued. It was initially to be 17 members. Now, the right number on the governing authority is 19. I put it to the House that the number keeps changing because there is no magic number and no one size that fits all. The people best placed to decide the right size of governing authorities are the institutions themselves. These are unpaid positions and every governing body has its own unique make-up and tradition, and the removal of the broad representation on the governing bodies will be a loss.

It is unfair to say that this Bill will move the sector to a competency-based governance model. Currently, governing bodies are made up of members from academic and non-academic bodies, undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate students, alumni, local authority nominees, trade union representatives, employers' organisations and others. This expertise is vital, particularly in more technical areas like financial reporting. However, we should not limit the value of the contributions from a wide variety of people. I welcome that there will now be three student members and one academic trade union representative. However, the Minister should reconsider the rigid, overly prescriptive governance structures and adopt a fair approach that can be applied to everyone without damaging the unique characteristics and differentiated missions of the various institutions.

There is no indication that more ministerial nominees will lead to greater diversity. Previously, ministerial or external nominees have had a strong bias towards business and corporate appointments. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions, ICTU, made an excellent submission during the Bill's consultation process and pointed out that the academic institutions with the highest reputations and most effective track records worldwide were those that enjoyed the highest levels of autonomy.