Joint Committee on Education, Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science debate -
Wednesday, 9 Oct 2024

I welcome the Minister, Deputy O'Donovan, and his officials. I congratulate the Minister on his appointment. This is his first appearance before this committee. He is here to brief us and discuss current and future plans, specifically funding shortages in higher education institutions, HEIs, corporate governance in HEIs, student accommodation and further expansion of apprenticeships. This will be followed by questions from members of the committee. Depending on the number of slots, we will allow members a specific length of time. Attendees will be aware that the Minister's opening statement will be published on the website following today's meeting.

Before we begin, I remind members of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person or entity outside the House or an official either by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable. Officials are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory with regard to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative they comply with the direction of the Chair.

We are joined by the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy O'Donovan, the Secretary General of the Department, Mr. Colm O'Reardon, Ms Aideen Foley, principal officer, Ms Caoimhe Hope, principal officer, Ms Fiona O'Byrne, principal officer, and Ms Sally Cao, principal officer. The Minister has five minutes to make his opening statement.

I thank the Chairman. I thank the committee for rescheduling this meeting, which was due to be held in the summer but was postponed due to a bereavement. I thank my officials for joining me today.

My Department is committed to supporting the success of all learners and drive improvements in the overall performance of the tertiary education system as well as providing continued support for world class research and innovation in Ireland. Last week, as part of the budget, I announced an overall package of €4.545 billion for my Department, providing for a major capital and current funding package for tertiary education along with measures to reduce the cost of education and tackle the cost of living.

We know that investing in skills is essential to maintaining the productivity and competitiveness of the Irish economy, and it is a priority to supply apprenticeship and training provision that meets the skills needs of industry now and into the future. Last week, I announced an investment of €77.4 million for the apprenticeship system. This represents the single largest investment in core apprenticeship funding since the formation of my Department and will support the continued growth of craft apprenticeships with 6,800 registrations in 2025, strengthening the construction workforce. We will grow our diverse apprenticeship offering, which currently ranges from hairdressing to cybersecurity, and support essential projects enabling a transition to a single national apprenticeship system. I also announced a €20 million skills package to sustainably use the National Training Fund, NTF, surplus. The measures will future-proof workforce skills in SMEs and other enterprises to ensure workers can readily access lifelong learning opportunities.

A major milestone has been reached in closing the core funding gap in higher education raised as part of the Funding the Future policy framework. This includes a multiannual investment that will increase core funding by a further €150 million per annum by 2029. Over the period 2025 to 2030, we will provide an additional €650 million in core funding to the higher education sector from the NTF. In 2025, we will increase core funding for higher education by €58.7 million through the Funding the Future initiative. This funding will allow the sector to increase staffing levels and strengthen capacity. It will provide for greater alignment of provision with priority skills needs and support the further development of tertiary degree programmes, increasing pathways to education. NTF funding will also support capital projects in a range of areas, with €600 million being invested across the provision of innovative equipment for the further education and training, FET, sector, the development of research infrastructure, key training facilities for specialist skills, universal design for learning and decarbonised training facilities.

The Department and I recognise that is vitally important that we continue to support students who need financial assistance, so all student grants and student part-time fee thresholds will be increased. The special rate of maintenance threshold will increase from €26,200 to €27,400 and there will be at least a 15% increase to all other thresholds. PhD stipends will increase from €22,000 to €25,000 per annum. Along with a number of cost-of-living measures, actions include: a 33% reduction to the student fee for 14,000 apprentices attending higher education institutions; a €1,000 reduction in the student contribution fee; an increase to the postgraduate fee grant from €4,000 to €5,000; and an additional €10 million for the student assistance fund to support tertiary students experiencing exceptional financial need.

I also recognise the significant challenges students face in securing appropriate affordable accommodation to enable their participation in higher education. I have secured investment of €7.5 million annual and recurrent funding for student accommodation initiatives in addition to the €100 million capital investment already committed through the national development plan, NDP.

Some €6 million of this will support the activation of approximately 1,200 student accommodation beds for long-term leasing as part of the technological university student accommodation programme. At least 30% of all beds activated under this programme will be provided at below market rates for target group students. The programme will prioritise new developments of student accommodation for leasing in conjunction with private providers and the higher education providers and will provide essential supply in key campus areas. Implementing the various policy responses for student accommodation across the sector will require dedicated resources, so €1million is being made available to ensure a strategic standardised approach is adopted across the sector.

The Department and I are determined that our college communities and campuses become more reflective of our society. We know that students with disabilities, including intellectual disabilities, have been under-represented in higher education. That is why I have extended the provision of courses for students with intellectual disabilities and 11 institutions across Ireland will provide courses this academic year. This will provide more choice for students and afford them opportunity to study at college alongside their friends and family. The fund for students with disabilities will increase by more than 18% to help students with disabilities as they enter third level and during their time on campus. The fund provides institutions with the resources to offer supports such as non-medical helpers, learning supports and assistive technologies to enable eligible students with disabilities, so that they can participate on an equal basis with their peers. I also look forward to the commencement of a pilot project to identify the most impactful interventions and supports for students with disabilities. The aim of this is to create a person-centred model of support that will be flexible and responsive to the students' needs.

I am proud of the work of the Department in progressing the tertiary education system, ensuring that it is accessible to all and meets the skills needs of our country. I am also pleased to confirm my commitment to utilise the NTF surplus by providing vital additional resources to fund research, higher and further education, skills and development.

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire as ucht teacht os comhair an choiste. I have limited time to try to find out some things I did not fully understand from the budget, if that is possible. I want to understand what money is being deployed where and that kind of thing. I will start with the €77.4 million investment for apprenticeships. All investment in apprenticeships is obviously welcome and positive. We want to address the backlogs to make sure apprentices do not continue being paid less for longer.

I understood there were 6,500 craft registrations in 2023. Am I correct? It is just that the 6,800 announced on budget day confused me because the Minister said he wanted to grow the craft apprenticeship system to 6,800 registrations, but I understood it to be 6,500 in 2023. That would only be an increase of 300. I imagine I am missing something here.

There was €77.4 million investment to grow apprenticeships. This funding represents an increase of approximately €39 million from 2024-2025, a 13% increase. The funding will provide for 6,800 craft registrations forecast in 2025. There is €5.9 million to grow the consortia-led apprenticeship, €4 million to enable transition to the single system of apprenticeship through a number of mechanisms, including the development of an IT platform-----

-----we had a backlog problem. We have invested heavily in that and cleared that backlog, as she is aware. The capacity in the system will allow us to deliver in excess of 30% more. With regard to the ETBs alone, the training capacity in the ETBs has increased by 34%, from 5,600 places in 2023 to more than 7,500 places in August 2024.

I welcome the €77.4 million. Any investment or apprenticeship is important. I welcome that more trainers have been recruited. I have seen the figures on that, but it confuses me that we are talking about 6,500 craft registrations in 2023 and then 6,800 in 2025. I do not think that shows ambition. Any way, I only have two minutes left.

I am talking about craft registrations because these are the people who want to build the homes we need. I welcome people doing all different types of apprenticeships, but to be honest I think it is a bit mad that we are talking about 6,500 craft registrations in 2023. Then the Ministers on the day of the budget start talking about 6,800 registrations as if this is massive growth.

I turn to the technological universities. Is the concept of moving off balance sheet the borrowing for delivery of student accommodation totally off the plan now? There had been talk at the start that in order for them to deliver student accommodation it would move off balance sheet. I raised this with the Minister's predecessor, and it seemed that was being moved away from. Is there any update on that? Is it something that is going to happen? If not, what is the plan? Will it be PPPs?

We are looking at this and we have active engagement on a continuous basis with the technological university sector. We are cognisant and it was spelled out both in the budget speech and in my own speech with regard to where we believe the greatest impact on students is at the moment, which is accommodation. We hope to make progress on this in the not too distant future, but it is not without its complications.

It is ongoing and, as the Deputy can imagine, the level of engagement we have is continuous. There is also a Eurostat issue we need to have due regard to, which we will. To be fair, if the Deputy looks at what we have done with the technological university sector over the past couple of weeks alone, it is clear there is a fundamental change with regard to how the technological sector is viewed. That is clear just from the evidence of the two new veterinary colleges, one of which is down the road from the Deputy and which I am sure she will use the opportunity to welcome.

Absolutely, it is literally beside my estate, but that is not really the question I have. I am trying to figure something out here. I could be wrong, but is it not that the review has to be done by the CSO and it then goes to Eurostat?

Is that not the way it works? What stage is it at?

The process involves the Higher Education Authority, our Department and Eurostat. It will have to involve the Department of Public Expenditure, NDP Delivery and Reform and Department of Finance as well because any change made to an entity that moves it on or off the State's balance sheet has, as I am sure the Deputy will appreciate, huge implications for the borrowing capacity not only of the individual institution but also the State.

I would call it an organic process of engagement. Since the technological universities were established, we are cognisant we want to invest a significant amount of capital in them, which we have done, continue to do and will do in the near future. The mechanism to do it will not be arrived at by our Department in isolation. A number of Departments and entities will have a say in that, including the technological universities themselves.

I thank the Minister and officials from the Department for coming before the committee. I welcome the €1,000 reduction in the student contribution fee. What will happen to students and their families who paid the full amount prior to the announcement in the budget? Will they be reimbursed or will it be carried over? Do they have the option?

In terms of the corporate and financial oversight of the higher education sector and technological universities, the Minister will be aware some third level institutions have got into difficulty over financial decisions. Are there plans to review oversight arrangements or is the Minister happy with them?

HEIs are autonomous organisations and come before the public accounts committee having had their accounts reviewed by the Comptroller and Auditor General. I have already told my officials and relayed to the Higher Education Authority that a number of these are running through. They are independent of the Department. There will be an opportunity for the Higher Education Authority to, for want of a better word, relay its views to the Department around the workability of the HEA Act, which is a recent addition to our legislative armoury. I have said publicly that if the HEA feels changes, improvements or amendments are needed to strengthen the Act, based on all the investigations under way, some of which have been aired in this room, I am open to that.

One of the things it does is allow us to do what we are doing and what we are seeing at the moment. In the absence of the HEA Act, we would not have had a section 64 process in any higher education institutes. On that basis alone, it is a huge improvement. We have to have regard, as a Government, to the fact that while most of the HEIs derive the lion's share of their funding from the public purse, they are autonomous organisations. Oireachtas Members during the passage of the Act were keen to point out there should be no infringement on the separation between the autonomy of the HEIs and the role of Government. However, autonomy should not come at the expense of accountability. I flagged early that if the HEA, having reviewed what it is reviewing at the moment, feels there is a need to strengthen it and asks the Secretary General in the Department for increased powers, I would be open-minded to that. I think that would be positive.

Grade inflation in the leaving certificate is primarily an issue for the Minister for Education but is the Minister concerned that in this and previous years we have seen students who got maximum points not able to get into the course of their choosing? Does he have any empathy for them? Is there anything he would like to see developed to ensure that does not happen in the future?

I heard my colleague, the Minister for Education, on the radio this morning talking to Claire Byrne about this. She laid out in easy to understand terms why grade inflation was introduced. She said the introduction of a cliff edge now would be equally difficult for students to bear for a variety of reasons. I support her in that but I also support her in the concept of moving away from inflated grades. There is no doubt but that it causes difficulty; it also causes difficulty for people coming from the North to study in the South. I have empathy and the utmost sympathy for people who get maximum points and are put into a lottery but, ultimately, decisions around the CAO are independent of our Department. Allocation of points is made by the CAO, which is an instrument of the Irish Universities Association. It has worked really well in recent years. The trajectory the Minister for Education has put in place around removing inflated grades is welcome and I think most students, parents and teachers would welcome it as well.

We gave legislative effect to Research Ireland and it was commenced on 1 August. Celine Fitzgerald has been appointed CEO on an interim basis and Michael Horgan is the chairman. It was not without its difficulties. I think everybody acknowledges that. However, the most important thing is that in the passage of the legislation through the Oireachtas, TDs and Senators were anxious to point out the need to move to a system which is not "us and them" when it comes to research and to have a single body that could, on behalf of the State's coffers, look after all research students and be cognisant of their needs and demands. The board that has been put in place represents, to as wide a degree as possible based on the expressions of interest, a good cross-section of academics, researchers and others who bring a variety of talents and experiences to it. It is the right thing to do and I look forward to them settling down, getting into the nuts and bolts and engaging with HEIs and the Government as a whole.

We also have a new chief science officer, Professor McLysaght, since the other day. I see the two of them working really well together and those roles are critical in making sure we have a research programme and research credibility internationally.

Fáilte romhat, a Aire. I would like to discuss academic freedom and the Athena Swan charter with the Minister but first I want to ask about the core funding commitment. The Minister's predecessor said after the Cassells report and the Funding the Future document that the issue of higher education funding in the future was settled. He was referring to the set figure of €307 million being made available annually, over and above the existing core funding. I thank the Minister for circulating his words in advance but I note he estimates that €650 million extra will be paid out in addition to core funding between now and 2030, inclusive. That is no more than €120 million more per year, on average. If we count the years that have been missed out in terms of reaching that core funding, what is promised brings us only a third of the way to the objective. To put it another way, adding up the increases each year in the core funding to be committed, starting with €50 million next year and €25 million for each subsequent year, and even adding another €100 million, it is still not at the €307 million.

While there is much to welcome in the budget, is it not the case that the Government is still falling short of the core funding increase promise that was given in 2022?

I thank the Senator for his question. I am sure he will have read the responses of the universities. This was one of the things they welcomed. They welcomed the fact, over the last two budgets, we provided €105 million to bridge the gap. We are providing another €50-odd million this year, bringing the figure to around €150 million. We will provide €50 million in 2025 and €75 million in 2026 and will have fully bridged that gap by 2030. That is very important from our point of view. We see our universities as critical places of learning. We have accepted the €307 million figure. We have not been trying to hide behind it but we also recognise that across all of the areas we have responsibility for - skills, apprentices, postdoctoral research, the whole shooting gallery of €4.5 billion - and opening up the-----

-----of a shortfall when you add up all the fallback of the successive years? Does the Minister agree that the supplementary budget needs to have a €90 million allocation in order to cover existing pay increase obligations for the years up to now, if that shortfall is not to eat into the benefits of what is being given this time around?

To take the Senator's last point first, as the Senator will appreciate, I will not negotiate a supplementary budget live on television. I am sure the Minister for public expenditure and reform would not appreciate it. I do not accept the premise that it is a failure. I do not think the Irish Universities Association or the representative of the technological universities-----

I think they would have thought they would have had it by now, though.

What about the recurrent grant allocation model, RGAM? There is concern - and I know there are two sides to this issue - about how future funding increases will be divvied out between the universities and technological universities. Is it going to be on a 50:50 basis or will it be on the basis of student numbers?

No. A reform agenda is something that is open to the Department working through the HEA. We have the Higher Education Authority for a good reason. We have it to advise us with regard to needs. We do not live in some sort of a bunker where we do not discuss anything. For instance, getting back to Deputy O'Callaghan's point with regard to inflated grades, the Government is making significant investment in veterinary, medicine, dentistry and pharmacy. In the near future, we will make significant announcements-----

What it has to do with it is that if the Senator looks at what we have done in the most recent announcement I made with regard to veterinary, we did not put it into what some people call a traditional university, which I think is terrible terminology. We decided to go into regional Ireland and into-----

No, it is not a simple question. It is done on a needs-based analysis and we will look at it based on a needs-based analysis. There is no decision made with regard to that. To decide that we are going to give 30% to this and 70% to that or 50% to this and 50% to that denies something called need. The next Minister for further and higher education, or a subsequent one, will obviously have views on that. Student numbers play a huge part in that. There is no doubt that they do.

I am going to hold off on my Athena SWAN question until the second round of questions, if I may, because I want to ask the Minister one other question. I will go back to the core funding. In what year, in the Minister's estimation, will we arrive at the point where university core funding will be €307 million or more above that 2022 figure? Does the Minister acknowledge that the longer this goes on, the more the cumulative shortfall over the years is growing and that it is now going to be well over €1 billion on the Government's proposed figures?

I have asked my questions but I want to put this on the record. There is a lot to be welcomed in the budget and the universities are rightly thanking the Minister. They are disappointed, however, because they thought that by now there would be a roadmap and the €307 million shortfall would have been reached. We will not even have reached that amount by 2029 on the figures proposed.

The only commitment that has ever been made with regard to a timeframe around when the gap will finally be closed is in this budget because it was the only basis on which there was a multi-annual funding model on which to base it. Up to then, it was on the basis of going in and trying to fight for each individual budget. That is now no longer the case and the universities are very happy about that.

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire. I welcome a lot of the announcements in the budget as well as some additional announcements, including the two new veterinary colleges, one of which will be the south east, which is very welcome, and the appointment of the chief scientific officer. There are a lot of positives. The fact that there is multi-annual funding for the universities now is welcome. The final goal, rather than debating the detail of the figures, is to ensure the full economic cost of providing every programme in the universities is met on an annual basis. I am sure the Minister would agree with me that this has to be the goal we want to achieve.

I will put some questions to the Minister on the detail. Senator Mullen mentioned that there is a €90 million pay gap with regard to funding for the current year and the Minister indicated that he would be bringing forward a supplementary budget.

If that is not done, it will become a problem in 2025. Is it still the Minister’s intention to introduce a supplementary budget?

I welcome the grants to early stage and other researchers increasing from €22,000 to €25,000, but what action is being taken on basic research equipment? The Minister will be aware of the concerns that have been expressed about how one third of all basic research equipment is more than 15 years old. What measures are being taken to address this challenge?

I was at University College Cork recently where this matter was raised with me. I was told that some of the apparatuses that I had trained on 30 years ago when I studied chemistry had not changed a whole pile, but the world has changed a great deal. Many of our universities have relied on foundations, philanthropy and industry. We acknowledge that. It is not where we would like to be, but the National Training Fund is changing that utterly. It gives us a roadmap for investing in equipment and facility upgrades that we could not have imagined being able to do in the fund’s absence. The use of the National Training Fund – I hope it will be me negotiating next year’s Estimate, but if it is someone else, then the best of luck to him or her – will become a live issue because there will be many wins and positives from the moneys that employers, including the State, pay into it. We will be able to invest in equipment at a very basic level in some cases but also at a higher level. There is also Taighde Éireann, a matter that the Senator has discussed in the Seanad and in which he has a lot of interest. It is the successor to Science Foundation Ireland. Our universities engage in a great deal of research collaboration with what was SFI and is now Research Ireland. There are opportunities in that space. For the science disciplines in particular, the unlocking of the National Training Fund has been a game-changer.

I appreciate the Minister’s point, but it is critical that researchers get a guarantee that they will be able to operate and work on modern equipment.

Will the Minister provide some specificity around the date for the announcement of the new healthcare programmes? There is an interest in pharmacy in the south east, but more generally-----

The capital research devolved grants for 2023 amounted to €15 million and to €25 million for 2024, so they have increased substantially.

I do not have the date, but it will be soon. We have gone through this process with the HEA. I hope to be in a position to have favourable news this month. No less than was the case with veterinary training, we take our guidance as a Department and a Government from an agency that was established for this purpose – the HEA, which the Senator knows well – and that is the basis on which we will continue.

-----include it in the programme for Government.

The issue of professorships for the technological universities is one we have been considering for quite a while. Has there been progress?

My view on this is simple: if technological universities are to attract research and philanthropic development and if they are to be drivers of economic development in their areas, they need to have access to academic staff, and that must include professorships. We are in active discussions with the Department of public expenditure and reform on this matter. We hope to be in a position to make a positive announcement on professorships, not only for the South East Technological University but for all technological universities, soon. I am acutely aware that a university has to have competent teaching staff.

No.

There has been approval of funding for MTU to reform its senior executive structures. When will the same be done for the other TUs?

The establishment of new leadership structures and the organisational review process have been progressing in each of the TUs and a business case has been submitted to our Department. The Department supports a sectoral approach to the development of senior management teams across the five TUs. Such an approach is vital. We have been engaging with the Department of public expenditure and reform on the sanction of these business cases on a case-by-case basis. In TU Dublin, the senior management team has been sanctioned and is in place. In MTU, an 11-post senior management team was sanctioned in November, although the terms of the sanction meant that MTU has only been able to make six appointments and must now seek further sanction. I met MTU about that last Friday while I was down there with the Tánaiste. For ATU, TUS and SETU, the last of which the Senator will be interested in, business cases have been submitted to the Department of public expenditure and reform for sanction and a response will come shortly.

Wexford County Council is progressing the acquisition of the preferred site by way of compulsory purchase. The intention is for a portion of the site to be used to facilitate a new Wexford campus. The HEA recently received a business case from SETU outlining the proposed infrastructure. That business case will require evaluation.

Regarding SETU Waterford, final contracts for the purchase of 20.3 acres of the 37-acre Waterford Crystal site were signed on 20 November. The intention with this site acquisition is the co-location of the Waterford Crystal site with the existing Cork Road campus, which would enable SETU to consolidate its Waterford activities. The business case for the required infrastructure is being progressed.

My final question is on governance. There has been some news about the potential influence of non-state actors in this State and, indeed, these Houses, but I would be grateful to know the Minister’s opinion on the Confucius Institutes and similar institutes that are not entirely under the governance of Irish universities. I would be grateful for the Minister’s perspective on whether the State should continue supporting the Confucius Institutes.

I will have to revert to the Senator regarding the Confucius Institutes. He and I have constructively debated in the Seanad the importance of academic autonomy, which Senator Mullen will ask me about shortly, the autonomous nature of the higher education institutes and where the Government begins and ends where they are concerned. Recent weeks have raised interesting questions about where the world is at the moment, with regard to state actors and so on. This is a matter that we will have to reflect on with the HEA and the HEIs collectively and individually. The Senator is right to raise it and people are right to be concerned about it. While we must preserve the concept of academic and HEI integrity and autonomy, we will need to have a discussion around the role of state actors in Irish third level education. I would be open to that.

As the Minister knows, I am a strong advocate for academic autonomy, but where another government is essentially trying to determine the academic programmes of an institution, it is a cause of concern. Given the increasingly authoritarian nature of the Chinese Communist Party, for it to have a say in any aspect of the Irish educational system is something I would view with deep concern.

Since 2023, my Department has been engaging with the research and innovation community on this matter.

We promote the concepts of due diligence, proper risk management and ensuring that international co-operation is properly risk-checked but at the same time I would be loath to say - I know this is not what the Deputy is saying - that international co-operation is something that we should all view with suspicion because it has been hugely positive for Irish students and for third level institutions to have access to both European ones such as Erasmus and Horizon and to those in the Far East, in the Middle East and in South America, where it has provided great opportunities. The Deputy is right to raise it, however, and we certainly will reflect on it.

I also acknowledge the progressive steps that were taken in the budget. In fairness, the Minister was central to many of the big decisions that were made and I congratulate him on that.

I was with the Minister of State, Deputy Niall Collins, in the Dáil last night. The Minister of State was taking questions in the Chamber specifically about apprenticeships. We have had SOLAS in here a number of times over the past few years. At one stage, we were told that it hopes to have caught up with the most serious of the backlogs at some stage in 2025. Will the Minister clarify if we are still on track for that kind of trajectory or what does the trajectory look like in terms of the backlogs? In addition, could the Minister comment on the action plan for apprenticeships, which sets out a roadmap for a single national apprenticeship scheme? The Minister might comment on the progress in that regard.

With regard to the budget, I thank Deputy O'Sullivan for acknowledging the positive in it. The budget for last year versus this year for apprenticeships has gone up by €10 million. Obviously, the backlog is a huge issue that we are concerned about but, as has been acknowledged by all parties, we have made a huge amount of progress on it. Eighty-seven instructors were recruited, with more to be advertised. Eighty temporary instructor staff were made permanent and SOLAS has mandated the ETBs to deliver a third intake.

With regard to the capacity, because Deputy Mairéad Farrell mentioned it but she has left now, training capacity in the ETBs has increased by 34% from 5,600 places in 2023 to over 7,500 in August 2024. The phase 2 backlog has been more than halved from 5,000 in October 2023 to just under 2,500.

With regard to the apprenticeship model, we meet regularly through the LEEF with representatives of employers, the unions, the Department and SOLAS. We are looking at a single system. I grew up in a house where craft apprenticeship was part and parcel of our household. My father always had a craft apprenticeship. We are looking at proposals. We are looking at suggestions that have been made. We obviously will not rush into anything because I am not a great believer in throwing the baby, bathwater, sink, taps and everything out. There are many things that work but reform is not something that people should be afraid of either. We will work with the employer representatives and the unions. As well as that, at the previous LEEF I was conscious of the apprentice because I recently met those apprentices who are part of the Building Heroes campaign and they pointed out many minor issues that take a lot of time to change that they would like to see changed. It was the same at WorldSkills, in Lyon and here in Dublin, with regard to young men and women, particularly in the crafts, who would like to see changes. There needs to be an avenue for them to filter their view in as well. It cannot only be about the employer, the Government and the union representatives. We need to hear the voices of the learners as well.

The Minister mentioned women and female participation, particularly in craft apprenticeships. Like the Minister, I was a teacher. In the latter part of my career, I noticed that more girls were taking on woodwork and metalwork. It has reached the point now where we see girls in my former school winning national awards. It is great to see the progress in that regard. Could the Minister outline some of the further steps he will take in increasing female participation?

My second point, as a supplementary, is in relation to craft apprenticeships in the round. Typically, it takes four years to complete a craft apprenticeship. With the backlogs factored in and with the delays some are experiencing in terms of block release, etc., has there been any analysis done in the Department to say it should take a carpenter four years to train but now it is on average four and a half years, or five years or five and a half years? Has the Minister any detail in relation that he can tell us?

There is only one, which is pipefitting, which is significantly longer than four years. That is only 1% of the apprenticeships. I am not in any way saying that is not something that we want to make progress on.

On what the Deputy said about female participation, 8% of the total apprenticeship population at present are women. It is an improvement but it is not where we want to be. We, obviously, want to grow this. Critical to this is career guidance in second level. All of the young people that I met, either in Lyon or in Dublin at WorldSkills, all said the same. It was about career guidance and having that option presented to them. One of the most tragic things that was said to me in the course of that was some young lad who got the equivalent of what we got, probably 500 points, and who wanted to do an apprenticeship. What was said to him was, "Is that not an awful waste of a good leaving cert?" We have to move away from that space. He went on and became an electrician. I am sure he is probably doing very well for himself at present. More power to him. We need to change this narrative that somehow, there is a difference between an apprenticeship and a degree. In continental Europe, as I saw in Lyon, it is not a case of either-or; it is both.

We recently launched, in the Deputy's native city, an apprenticeship run between Cork ETB and UCC on social work and social care. We need to start looking at other disciplines as well, not only the craft apprenticeships which have been fundamental to the construction sector and which are very positive, but also other disciplines as well. We need to see are there other areas that we can expand into, either by way of the traditional craft model or another model, that will bring more women into it. Earn-as-you-learn has been hugely successful. It gives people an opportunity to have an income at a time when they otherwise would not. We need to change the dial. In that, I have a job to talk to the mothers and fathers of Ireland as well. There are people who tell me out straight that they would not have liked to have gone to university, they did not want to go to university but wanted to do an apprenticeship. We need to view it as a sound career choice that people can get a very good income from and they can be very happy with. We need to invest in the communications of it as much as the delivery of it.

The CAO is a great leveller in the sense that it is totally anonymous. It does not say that one went to Glanmire secondary school or that one went to a school in the South Mall or wherever. It is a great leveller. It is totally anonymous. It does what it says on the tin. It gives everybody, based on a unique identifier, an opportunity to go to university or to pursue a career for themselves that does not look at eircodes, does not look at addresses, and does not look at their background or the school that they go to. It looks on the basis of what they achieved in their leaving certificate.

On the annual pilgrimage that is the CAO every year, one will always have the radio presenter saying, "Bear in mind now, today is not the be all and end all", yet they offer three hours in the morning talking about it. They are saying to young people, "By the way, it is not the be all and end all", and they spend all day talking about it. What an oxymoron. It is not the be all and end all but, unfortunately, it has become this annual pilgrimage to the shrine of the CAO where we all pay homage to it, especially driven by the media. It is a terrible thing because some people are very disappointed and their parents are watching on at them. They have done their best to try to achieve a course, they do not get it, they are devastated and they do not see an alternative route. They do not see a pathway. There are a huge amount of pathways that are there now that never existed before to become a doctor, a physiotherapist, an occupational therapist or whatever. It is more of that we need to do.

In relation to the CAO system, has anybody has provided any evidence of something that would be better? The answer is, "No". Until I hear of something that would be better, that is equally anonymous, that does not look at a person's eircode, and that does not look at the fact that their mother or father did not have a job before them or did not go to the right school, the fact that it is anonymous and that everybody is treated the same is a great leveller.

I think Deputy O'Sullivan will appreciate that I would only be of a mind to go tinkering with something if somebody said there was a better system out there. I have not heard of a better system out there to ensure access to autonomous, independent higher education institutions through a system, which is not run by the Department or of the Department but is supported by it in the sense that we believe it is a great leveller. If there is another mechanism out there-----

I thank the Minister for his presentation. On student accommodation, he referred to student accommodation for targeted students being below market price. Who are the target students? What is the qualifying criteria? How would the programme be rolled out? How would students be informed that they could apply for the exemption or support?

In the first instance, we got a sum of money to activate the student accommodation system for 2025. This is in addition to the student accommodation allocation the former Minister, and now Taoiseach, got previously through the national development plan and the windfall. It is up to the universities to subscribe to and ascribe the thresholds in those instances. They will know what a 30% threshold will mean. I stated in the Dáil that our clear policy objective is to increase the amount of purpose-built accommodation. Before the establishment of my Department, there was no student accommodation budget of any description. I am sure Senator Mullen will agree that further and higher education, particularly further education, was the poor relation in the Department of Education. There is now a ring-fenced budget of €4.5 billion for next year. We have moneys for student accommodation. We hope most of that will be activated through rental agreements, leasing options or activation measures.

Even if I had €1 billion today for student accommodation, which I do not, we would still have to secure planning permission and go through procurement and detailed design, which will take a period of time, before we would even have a machine on the ground. The Higher Education Authority, the universities and the Department have a bit of work to do on how we spend the initial tranche. This money will ramp up incrementally going forward. It is certainly a huge improvement on where we were.

As the Deputy will know as a constituency TD, the type of students we are targeting are those who will have come through the SUSI system, people who are socioeconomically disadvantaged. They will obviously have met a set of criteria already to qualify for a grant. We have changed the thresholds this year to make sure we keep the people in it who are already in it and do not have people falling off. Over the last couple of years, we have seen wages, employment levels and opportunities grow. Therefore, we want to use the moneys available to us for student assistance to make sure we kept in the grant system those who were already in it. The choice was to either increase the amount or ensure those who were getting the grant continued to get it. I believed it was more important to keep people in the system and avoid losing them, and the Department agreed with me.

On the 30% threshold, the people currently going through the SUSI system are known to the university system because, in many cases, the universities will have access to that information. They will come through a similar system.

Apprenticeships are of equal value to a university degree. We in Ireland need to change our view of apprenticeships. As the Minister rightly said, in Germany and other places people take a different view of apprenticeship and they are treated as equivalent to a university degree, and rightly so. The Minister is right that we do need to reach parents. Is there collaboration with career guidance teachers in second level education to change that mindset?

To be fair to career guidance teachers, I think we are changing it. If anyone had the opportunity to attend the WorldSkills Ireland event held in the RDS recently, they will have seen that the place was chock-a-block with students from all over the country, led predominantly by their career guidance teachers. However, we still have a job of work to do. Recently I met a group of young apprentices, working with Building Heroes. I asked them if they believed the word "apprentice" properly encapsulated what they do and they suggested there should be a discussion about changing the title. I have no fixed view on that because I grew up in a house where my late father always had apprentices. Should apprentices instead be called "trainees"? Do we need to change that? We have to change the viewpoint of the mothers and fathers of Ireland as much as anybody else.

We need more people to become apprentices. Without doubt, people can earn a good living. Some of the salaries that young people graduating with craft apprenticeships receive are eye-watering. More power to them because it is not an easy job but it is a fulfilling job. We need women to become apprentices, as I think the Deputy will agree. I met a group of women recently who are apprentice plumbers. A couple of years ago, I would have been taken aback by that but, thankfully, we are starting to see it now and we need to see more of it. We also need to see workplaces become places that are amenable and open to that level of change. In doing so, we must acknowledge that we would not any of this were it not for employers. We need employers to take on and train young men and women every year. Most of the training that apprentices receive does not come from a book or a white board but from the master craftsperson who shows them how to French polish, install a pipe or build a staircase. Apprentices do practical work and learn from craftpersons.

We also need to do an awful lot more in the public sector. Our ambition in this regard is good. It cannot just be the Office of Public Works, which has been much maligned recently, carrying the load for apprentices in the public sector. Local authorities, Departments and State agencies need to do an awful lot more.

Yes. The Minister mentioned career guidance teachers. They have shown leadership on this issue. Traditionally, some schools are better than others at promoting apprenticeships at a whole-school level. It is unfair to directly blame any career guidance teacher but some schools have a culture of apprenticeships. The school I attended was known as "the tech" at the time and such schools were known for providing apprenticeship training. A lot of people went into apprenticeships and that was the tradition of the school I attended. Some schools still place a greater focus on academic attainment, which is not the fault of career guidance teachers. Is there more collaboration to break down barriers and change that mindset?

I agree with the Deputy. The people we are trying to convince do not watch Oireachtas TV. They are on TikTok and Instagram. Thankfully, we have good, young influencers, such as Building Heroes, who have a massive following on Instagram and are encouraging young women to go into apprenticeships and the crafts. We need more of that because not only are influencers telling people about the amounts of money they are making when they finish but they are also telling them about their work-life balance, career progression and sense of job satisfaction. These are all things you do not get from a book.

To be fair, career guidance teachers are pulled and dragged all over the place in some respects. The WorldSkills event was a huge eye-opener for me with regard to the type and varied nature of employment available to school leavers who choose not to take the traditional route of going to university.

The Deputy is right. Up until recently, some young people felt that if they did not go to university, they would be asked why they did not go and what they had been doing since. That is why I am open to a conversation on this matter. The name might or might not be key to it. Certainly, if a lot of the mothers and fathers of Ireland knew what their sons and daughters could earn when it comes to the crafts, they might look at them a bit differently.

Before I come back to Senator Mullen, I have a number of questions for the Minister on oversight arrangements. Deputy Jim O'Callaghan raised this issue in respect of third level institutions when he was here. I accept that the Minister has no direct responsibility for the oversight, financial or otherwise, of any university. However, are he and his Department happy with the current arrangements that are in place or would they like to see them strengthened? We have a larger footprint of technological universities. These institutions were established in recent years. I tabled a parliamentary question on this matter about two weeks ago. The reply I received back was that the Minister has no direct responsibility. While it does not sit well and while a number of universities are currently under investigation, what are the Minister's and the Department's views on the current arrangements?

Are we happy? Of course we are not happy when we see the deliberations in the Committee of Public Accounts with Accounting Officers - in this case presidents of universities - and the stuff we are all confronted with as Members of the Oireachtas. Ultimately, the Oireachtas votes the money to our Department and then our Department delegates it to the Higher Education Authority. It then goes to each of the universities. The Accounting Officer is the president of the university who is auditable both internally and externally, the external auditor being with the Comptroller and Auditor General. Given some of the stuff that has come out, one could not possibly be happy with it. Over the coming period, as some of the current investigations run their course, my request, through my Secretary General, to the Higher Education Authority has been quite simple. If the authority believes that it needs powers additional to those it has and that are contained in the relatively recent legislation relating to it, then I would certainly be of a mind to afford it those powers. Many of the problems that have come to light would not have been unearthed were it not for the Higher Education Authority Act 2022, which the former Minister, now Taoiseach, brought in.

I am conscious, as previous speakers said, of academic and higher education institutions' independence and autonomy. The Minister for further and higher education does not order the tarmacadam that is needed for a particular project. There has to be accountability at higher education institution level, and that goes for the technological university sector as much as it does the older university sector. I do not differentiate one from the other. We cannot have a situation whereby if we increase the powers of investigation or compellability or seek to strengthen the Act, that would in any way dilute the responsibility of an Accounting Officer. It is the Accounting Officer - in this case is the president of a university - who, together with the governing authority and the executive of a university, makes the decisions that incur financial responsibilities. We cannot deviate from that either. There is a fine balance between autonomy and accountability. Ultimately, however, the Oireachtas has to be satisfied that public money is being spent properly. If the Oireachtas is not happy in that regard, then we will obviously have to take further steps.

I am also interested in the position with regard to European Union funding, funding from outside the State and philanthropic funding. When we see what is happening with some of the universities, there is definitely a question mark over future funding and philanthropy. I am aware that this is separate from the Department, but I presume it is a matter of concern for the Minister.

It concerns me because if there were a drop off in any philanthropic source, the spotlight will come back on our Department in the context of trying to fill the gap. That is not a space we want to be in. We want universities to have foundations and we also want them to be out beating the bushes internationally to get money to make sure that the next generation of young learners is properly resourced. We want universities to have international relationships and we want them to be independent. We also want them, and require them, to be responsible. If they are not then there has to be repercussions. Section 64 of the Higher Education Authority Act is the vehicle there. After the current round of investigations is complete, and having had regard to what the Comptroller and Auditor General has said in respect of a number of different institutions, if the CEO and the chairman of the Higher Education Authority believe the Act can be strengthened, while at the same time maintaining the autonomy and independence of institutions, we will strengthen it.

Some of the stuff has been more than disappointing; it has been outrageous. We cannot have that going on. We cannot have that going forward. There has been a culture change in the higher education institutions, which is welcomed by virtue of what we have seen in this room and others in this precinct. That is a good thing. It is good the institutions are held to account. However, I also believe that the vast majority of public moneys going through universities are properly spent and properly accounted for. I hate to think that we would cast an aspersion on everybody. The vast majority of our university staff, of our executives, and of our governing authorities and university presidents get up in the morning to do right by the public purse. There have been a number of high-profile incidents that have been totally unacceptable. These are being investigated. In the round, however, the Act has allowed us to do things we were not able to do before and if we need to strengthen it we will strengthen it.

I get the Minister's reply as to whether he had a message for the presidents of the universities, who are also the Accounting Officers. On the funding framework for technological universities, and the opportunities and criteria around the framework, has the Minister any announcement to make? Is any announcement imminent allowing them to borrow? Has the situation already changed?

As I said in reply to a previous contributor, it is a body of work that we are undertaking as a Department in conjunction with the Department of public expenditure and reform and other agencies, including Eurostat. It will have obvious implications. One of the most important things we will do in the short and medium term is to build capacity in our universities, especially our technological universities in the context of their recent upgrade to university status, for the skill sets that are required. That is my primary focus. I know the borrowing framework gets a lot of media traction but aside from that, the most important thing for me from this year's budget is the multi-annual element of the NTF, which will be ramp up substantially from 2025 onwards. There will be considerable opportunities in the technological university sector, not only around investment in infrastructure, including basic scientific equipment, which I spoke about with earlier contributors, but also in accommodation. I will require a piece of legislation to go through the Houses of the Oireachtas with regard to the NTF shortly. I will be seeking the support of this committee and all parties in that regard. The future of the technological university sector should not be viewed through the narrow lens of borrowing capacity and a few other limited issues. I have met representatives of most of the technological universities and they all say that they feel there is a massive amount of positivity towards them. Student numbers and CAO requests are up. The offering of courses they have is changing and I hope to be in a position to change that further in the next couple of weeks. There will be a series of announcements that will be welcome.

There is no doubt but that multi-annual funding is very welcome. This committee has visited a number of technological universities over the past four and a half years. I agree that we should not get too hung up on the borrowing framework and must consider the broader picture. Many of the technological universities are former institutes of technology, and the infrastructure around the apprenticeship areas is in dire need of funding. More space is required. The Minister will agree that the infrastructure where the training is being done requires further investment. That is the area that is brought to my attention and the attention of others by technological universities.

The South East Technological University in Waterford is the nearest to my area. Accommodation is an enormous issue for it. I know what it wants to do in and around accommodation. I understand that whatever funding the Minister has must be shared among all the technological universities, other universities and third level institutions. I know what the Minister means when he says we should not get too hung on that point but it is important that the universities are given an opportunity to get in on the borrowing framework. I know there is a process that has to be gone through in that regard and the Minister cannot, with the stroke of a pen, just change the current situation. Has the Minister any comment to make?

That is a substantial amount of money. It is divided up via the landscape fund, the technological universities transformation fund, the sector advancement fund, the research and innovation fund and the transformation for resilience and recovery fund.

A lot of work is being done with the technological universities and others with regard to accommodation. The feasibility study report is due in the first quarter of 2025. That is opportune because the standardised design for student accommodation will be finished around the same time. The standardised design will be an agreed set of building standards for purpose-built student accommodation that is coming out of the public purse. Additionally, a number of planning permissions around the country have not been activated. There are permissions in place for the technological universities and other colleges, including the likes of the Centre for Marine and Renewable Energy Ireland, MaREI. We are looking to see how they can be activated. They are in private hands and we will not initiate compulsory purchase orders but we can work with owners and developers to ensure those permissions are activated. Next year's fund will help to give certainty in that regard. It grows and rolls over on an annual basis and gives certainty not only to the higher educational institutes but also to the owners of the lands who may have planning permission. The funding can reassure them that it would be worth activating the permission.

The State can do a great deal but it cannot do everything. My predecessor and I put a lot of emphasis on digs accommodation in the past year. This year, we have increased the income tax thresholds again. The rent-a-room tax credit has been a success, as we know. We know from the past 12 months and the census that was carried out at the end of the academic year that there is surplus accommodation in many towns, including university towns and those associated with the South East Technological University. We want to work with private householders because students are coming into their homes. There is a double element to it. One is the rent-a-room tax credit and the other is the tax credit that accrues to the students or their parents, which is going up by €250. Over the period of time we have put an emphasis on this issue, we have doubled the number of digs beds available. There are now just short of 5,500 digs beds available, which is not insignificant. We want to grow that availability further.

With consideration of accommodation comes consideration of the cost of living, which the Minister addressed in his opening statement.

The Minister said he does not envisage a review of the CAO lottery and its unfairness. Some people might dispute the word "unfairness" but I know that as a Member of the Oireachtas, I received a number of calls from parents of students who fell short or who got the maximum number of points but still did not get the course they would have liked.

When it comes to your own family members, you think differently on this. I thought a lot about this and there is no simple solution to it but one area, especially for me within my own family and outside of it, three students who did not fall short of getting the points to study veterinary science. This comes to my next point about the announcement of veterinary courses in the two locations in the technological universities. That is welcome. I am delighted that SETU is one of the awarding colleges. When does the Minister see students being taken in and these courses up and running, because we all know the shortage of veterinary places led to a number of disappointed students? It is not just in veterinary courses, but other courses as well. When does the Minister see this up and running and bums being on seats?

The important thing to point out is that the awarding of the two veterinary colleges, which has been long talked about, was made as a result of a recommendation of the Higher Education Authority. The Department has resourced and funded to allow the Higher Education Authority, HEA, to make that by virtue of the amount of money we give it. It goes to a number of different elements of the programme for Government, including rural regeneration. Historically, someone who wanted to become a vet had to go to Dublin or abroad. We have changed that now on the basis of the Higher Education Authority's recommendation. Submissions were reviewed by an independent panel, which included the chief veterinary officer.

The first students will go into the courses in the next academic year. There are 80 places between the two universities. The students will not, obviously, all start together, but they will have all commenced in both universities throughout the academic years 2025-26 and 2026-27. As they go from first year onwards, the number of students in those universities will grow. The faculties will bed down and the expansion will be there. I know it is important for Kildalton and Mountbellew. I will use this opportunity to say that just because we have announced two veterinary colleges, it does not mean we are closing the door on other veterinary colleges in Ireland in the future. I want to make that clear. I know some universities might be disappointed and might have said they were not ready or decided not to go for it this time. To be clear, we are not closing the door on a future expansion of veterinary education in Ireland. That will be for another Minister and the next Government to decide, but I believe there is value in expanding that further.

The Cathaoirleach mentioned the traditionally sought-after courses that have very high points. We have already made significant inroads into the therapy courses, namely, physiotherapy, occupational therapy and speech and language therapy. We have done that. I have a memorandum to Government with regard to that. We work collaboratively with the universities in Northern Ireland. Many students from Ireland go North or to Britain. That has been historic. Depending on what part of the country a student is from, it has been a tradition. In the coming weeks, I believe we will make announcements about future education with regard to the healthcare disciplines that will be transformational and not only in terms of providing new places. I am not certain the points are going to come down, because the more places are provided, the more interest is accrued, and all of sudden people who did not put it as a number one choice before would do so. I do not necessarily see the points coming down dramatically, but we will see a lot more graduates coming out. They will come from universities that never had these particular disciplines before. That will be a great thing.

Is the Cathaoirleach suggesting I might not be around? Wexford County Council is progressing the acquisition of the preferred site by way of a compulsory purchase order. The HEA recently received the business case from SETU outlining the proposed infrastructure, which will require evaluation. Once that is done, we will see-----

I want to put my own satisfaction and delight at the announcement of the new veterinary college places on the record, particularly in Mountbellew, where I went to school myself. It is a tidy and thriving town. It will be good for those students, and they will be good for Mountbellew. We might meet some of those students in training when the vets come out in the middle of the night to look at a cow, as occasionally happens.

I raise the issue of the Athena Swan charter with the Minister. I thank him and the Department for the briefing note on it. There is concern among quite a few academics in this country that the Athena Swan charter - which, as the Minister knows, started out with high ideals as a body to progress the equality of the sexes and gender equality in higher education and research - has become a kind of an ideological monster that could threaten people's academic freedom. With respect to the Cathaoirleach, I have a couple of specific questions for the Minister about this, but it is important to set out the background here. The Athena Swan charter was a pre-Brexit import from the UK. In its UK form, it has changed. For one thing, access to funding for higher education research in the UK is not dependent, strictly, on compliance with the Athena Swan charter's principles. There are other possibilities. That is not the case in Ireland.

The Higher Education Authority has explicitly stated that higher education institutions stand to lose access to research funding if they do not achieve Athena Swan awards within a set timeframe. The problem with that is, aspects of the Athena Swan charter agenda have become quite ideological and involve some contestable ideas in a way that could frustrate and victimise academics in the exercise of their academic freedom. To give an example, there is a commitment required to foster collective understanding that intersectional inequalities must be accounted for and a commitment to fostering collective understanding that individuals have the right to determine their gender. That is not a scientifically-based proposition, because you cannot determine your gender. Your gender is a given. You may have issues with your gender identity and may deserve everybody's sympathy, but academics must be free to critique this, regard it as nonsense if they wish, and make their case without feeling threatened in their academic freedom. Even if the Minister were to disagree with me on that, one might say that the demand to sign up to social justice commitments of any kind and the coercion to become activists for social justice goals determined by an external body is as much a problem as the potential content of those principles, because higher education bodies in universities are enforced by the Irish Government to push norms and standards set by international NGOs, in effect. In the case I have just given, it is not even evidence-based or required by law. As I said, it is potential destructive for academic freedom. My concerns are, and these are the specific questions. A Chathaoirligh, this is important stuff, and I have sat around too.

We will get through them now. The problem is, you have to be on board with the Athena Swan charter in Ireland if you want to get funding. That means it is a gateway and a control. If it is advancing politically contested principles, that is a problem for academic freedom. The questions to which I would be grateful for an answer, having regard to the briefing the Minister provided - and he can interrupt me if he wants to just give me answers or he can give them sequentially or whenever he wants - how much HEA funding was used to support the work funding the Athena Swan charter in the last financial year? Can the Department supply details on the cost to the public Exchequer of this work? If the-----

I thank the Minister. The charter requires acceptance of principles that impinge on freedom of conscious and religion, for example. One test of academic freedom would be that should an individual refuse to comply with the compulsions entailed in the Athena Swan Ireland charter, that the person in question would not suffer disadvantage. Are individual academics free to reject the charter in their writings and in their academic actions in light of their academic views on the charter?

Just before the vote, one of the things I wrote down was that the Senator did not want academic freedoms to be threatened and I entirely agree with that. I also do not want any individual, member of an academic staff or a student in any university or HEI to feel threatened by who they are for whatever reason. In my understanding, that is what the whole concept of this framework is, given that it is not just used in Ireland and the United Kingdom but is also used in the United States, Canada, India and other countries. There is an acceptance around the world now that there are basic norms. In response to getting public moneys into education, what the Senator said is absolutely correct. Threats, for whatever reason, should not be present.

For whatever a person wants to study, how they present themselves or how they identify, they should not feel threatened by that. The charter also talks about a flexible framework and is designed to ensure diversity whereby different individuals, ideas and perspectives are valued, which goes to the kernel of autonomy within education. The Government does not in any way impinge on that. It also complements fundamental commitments to academic freedom. It helps promote the voices of all. It recognises each institution, department and professional unit has different equality challenges. It does something very important that relates to my previous occupation; one of its goals is to tackle the under-representation of men in particular disciplines, which is something I think is really valuable considering the shortage of men in primary education. On top of all of that, while that is the framework and the basis on which they operate, national legislation also exists to ensure that people are protected and that academic freedoms are protected.

Going back to what I said a while ago, the Higher Education Authority Act 2022 is fundamental in this regard. The Senator, therefore, is right and I agree with him. Threats have no place in a university, whether it might be threats to people's academic integrity, their belief systems or to who and what they present themselves as.

Yes. The problem with what the Minister is saying, though, while it is fine in general terms and I agree with him that there is plenty of good that Athena SWAN set out to promote and defend, is how these things can get manipulated over time. We are living in a cancel culture kind of environment, where we see people who have views that differ from someone else's being accused of making the other person feel unsafe. Now, that is not a good academic environment and yet it is increasingly the problem across the western world. Nobody wants to threaten anybody, but if the very expression of certain academic ideas is deemed by another person to be a threat, that cannot be the basis to close down their academic freedom. It is not clear to me what the situation is with Athena SWAN in this context, as it is currently. As I said, we must bear in mind it is the gateway to funding. This has changed in Britain and is not now the case there, where there are other ways of peeling the onion.

In relation to this aspect, I am sure that if we had an academic perpetrating antisemitic, anti-Catholic, anti-Islamic or Islamophobic ideas within the confines of a higher education institute, we would want to have a charter, a set of rules and a set of principles to ensure that person was not allowed to promulgate that sort of hate.

That argument is what is called reductio ad absurdum, and it will not reassure academics. I just gave the Minister an example of an objective of Athena SWAN that is not scientifically backed or demonstrable, namely, the idea that a person may determine their gender. I put the question to the Minister again regarding the case of an individual academic who has publicly rejected the Athena SWAN charter on the grounds that they believe it inhibits academic freedom or requires compliance with certain political ideas they contest and, unlike the example of Nazi Germany, legitimately contest having regard to logic and evidence. Given that this person might want to supervise PhD candidates in situations where applications for public funding are involved, can such an academic feel reassured that their rejection of the overly politicised dimension of Athena SWAN, as they believe it and can, no doubt, demonstrate, will not mean they will be victimised in the performance of their academic freedom?

The HEIs as independent entities have HR and IR mechanisms and scaffolding to protect individuals and to investigate, where appropriate, if people bring allegations or any sort of complaint against an academic or non-academic member of staff. I am just wondering if it is on the basis of gender equality plans that the Senator has the greatest level of difficulty with this situation or is it concerned with a wider issue.

This is an academic freedom issue. Undoubtedly, the gender-critical debate, if you like, illustrates the problem. What we see here, as we have seen in the Government's controversial legislation around hate speech, contains definitions that are, at best, politically contested and, at worst, scientifically illiterate. This is an example.

That is a bit harsh. Going back to the Minister, I have given him an example of something that is not demonstrable in fact but nonetheless is used as a part of the political agenda of Athena SWAN. I pointed out to the Minister that in Britain there can be other ways of complying. Athena SWAN should not be the only gateway. I also pointed out to the Minister that in Britain there is-----

-----including my questions concerning an individual's public rejection of the AS Ireland charter. Even just that would make him or her ineligible for promotion within a department or school that has adopted the charter. If people may have gender-critical views around people's sense of self, can the Minister give staff at third level colleges a guarantee that expressions of academic freedom will not negatively impact on employment, promotion or research eligibility? I ask the Minister to please not compare this to Nazi Germany. We are talking about academics who are concerned not to be bullied into using language that, in some cases, they regard as untruthful. We have highly contested stuff here. The Government has withdrawn its own hate speech Bill because a great number of people in our society are scratching their heads at the political insiderism that has led to such contested definitions of, for example, gender, as contained in that legislation. This is not like some kind of a fringe issue. There is serious concern among credible academics.

I did not say it is a fringe issue, and to characterise it as that is a misrepresentation. The Senator can read back over the transcript of the debate. I never characterised it as that. To be fair, the Senator has not enunciated what are the positives of the charter and the goals associated with it.

Any academic in Ireland has a right to recourse through his or her employer if they feel they need it. Bullying is a very serious issue. The Senator mentioned the word "bullied". If any academic or non-academic member of staff or a student in a university or HEI governed under the auspices of the Higher Education Authority Act 2022 is bullied or in any way impeded from progression, they will have recourse through the HR and IR mechanisms, and they know that.

They also know that the Minister of the day does not have direct line responsibility for this issue. They know too that the HEIs collaborating with the HEA have worked on this subject over a long time. I think there was a review of this issue in the early 2000s. To be honest about it, the fundamental question the Senator asked me is if I can give guarantees regarding career progression or anything to do with HR. That is not the role of the Minister.

My point is that the Minister said earlier that he is not open to looking at the points system and that way of access on the basis that the CAO is the best show in town until he sees another one. Okay, then. I would like a more reassuring answer as to whether he would be open to further discussion and examination of the Athena SWAN Ireland charter and how it is operating in light of the fact that many decent academics are worried that it could curtail their academic freedom.

-----as well as I do that the higher education institutes, together with the Higher Education Authority, is the correct forum in which this can be discussed further because I do not have any human resource or industrial relations remit. That is a matter for the governing authorities of each individual HEI working with the HEA.