Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Acting Chairperson and Seanad Éireann for its detailed consideration of the Bill. I sincerely thank the team of officials who have worked on the legislation. I thank Tanya Kenny, who is sitting with me, Íde Mulcahy, Stuart Morris and all the team in the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science.

This is particularly significant legislation because apart from the substance of it, it is the first that my still relatively new Department has had passed. I thank Seanad Éireann for unanimously passing the Bill. Not one Senator called a vote on the Bill. I thank all the Senators for passing the Bill in its entirety today. I thank everybody who has engaged with the Bill. There has been very extensive engagement. Senator Ruane mentioned a number of the groups, including the IUA and the Technological Higher Education Association, THEA. I am afraid to name other groups in case I leave any out. I also acknowledge the USI, individual students, individuals in governing authorities, and the chairs and presidents of governing authorities. It would be awfully unusual if there was not a very detailed and robust debate on a Bill relating to the third level sector. There have been points of disagreement and points of agreement. It has led to a much better Bill. We have amended the Bill on many occasions during its passage.

In particular, in the area of the Irish language, the Bill is stronger than it was when it started out. We made really good progress on the Irish language on Committee Stage in the other House. I thank the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel, the Office of the Attorney General and the Bills Office here.

The last time we passed substantive legislation on how we govern the higher education sector was in 1971.In 1971, Ireland was a different place. We were not in the European Union and there were 20,000 full-time higher education students in Ireland. There are now over 200,000 full-time higher education students in Ireland so we are in a very different place and it is right and proper that we have modern legislation in place.

I want to assure people that this legislation is empowering in the sense that there is an awful lot of work to do once it passes. There is work to be done on the regulations, on the composition of the governing authorities, on the city and county councillors and on guidelines, codes and practices we can put in place to have a truly transparent and modern higher education system. There are also some immediate things the passage of this Bill will allow us to do, including allowing SUSI support for the issuing of scholarships for the first time and allowing St. Angela's College in Sligo to join the new technological university up there. It will also allow us to develop new apprenticeships in the area of agriculture and farming, which is particularly significant as it is the week of the National Ploughing Championships.