Tom Clonan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State and his officials. I am not confident that my amendment will be accepted, but I would like to put on the record that the principle of parity of esteem should form part of the Bill. There is a typo in the amendment. It should not state "between disciples"; rather it should state "between disciplines".

Having been an academic for 22 years and a researcher before I was elected to Seanad Éireann, I know there is a hierarchy of knowledge in the Irish third level environment. That is reinforced and buttressed in the allocation of funding, and in the manner, distribution and pattern of funding that is awarded. There is a huge bias towards the natural sciences. The human sciences, arts and literature are very much the underdog. There has even been a suggestion that some subjects such as, for example, history, be taken out of the second level curriculum.

A lot of that flows from the intellectual and ethical failures of the Celtic tiger that brought this country to the precipice of financial destruction and forced us to lose our financial and economic sovereignty for quite a period of time, and everything that flowed from that. In the aftermath, the Government commissioned the Hunt report, a strategy statement for higher education out to 2030. The report stated repeatedly that research and innovation in third level education should be the engine of Ireland's economic recovery. While it is the case that universities should be the engine of our economic recovery, they should also very much be the engine of our ethical recovery.

The Universities Act refers to academic freedom and gives it legal protection. The Act states that researchers and academics should have the right to hold provocative and challenging opinions and views. That is important. I have brought forward doctoral research around a much-loved institution in this State, Óglaigh na hÉireann, which revealed shockingly high levels of sexual assault and rape within the organisation. That contribution to knowledge, which involved a disruptive and provocative set of findings, led immediately to a sustained and robust campaign of reprisal and character assassination, including threats of criminal prosecution for breaches of the Official Secrets Act, which destroyed my reputation and left me in fear of losing my job and being imprisoned. Yet, 25 years later we have a judge-led inquiry that is still investigating what happened.

There is a resistance in Irish culture to new and provocative ideas. It is important that the legislation underpinning this new agency clearly states that we protect parity of esteem. I would even go so far as to say that a certain amount of funding should be ring-fenced for certain disciplines. For example, the head of a research agency, though not quite a bully, might have been found to have repeatedly engaged in inappropriate behaviour. That is the realpolitik of how funding is dispersed in this country and the type of people who gravitate towards leadership roles in our third level sector.

We have to be really careful and put insurance in the Bill to protect parity of esteem and freedom of expression. The strategy statements for universities all contain a commitment to a provocative professoriate. That should be reflected in such an important Bill as this, which governs the disbursement of funds that will bring our research further into the 21st century. As I said, I am not confident that my amendment will be accepted but it is a lost opportunity. I thank the Minister of State for his patience in hearing me out.