Senator Gerard P Craughwell - speech from 23 Jul 2020

Minister, it has proven that countries that invest in research power ahead. Take for example New Zealand and South Korea, there is a reason why they have managed with the coronavirus so well. Apart from excellent political leadership, they have highly developed innovation and research sector. In Ireland we pride ourselves on our high standard of education at all levels and it is a significant factor in attracting foreign direct investment into the country and research and development. Irish academics and researchers have been to the forefront of our very successful efforts so far in the COVID-19 area and many are world leaders in their profession. We trust their authority and their objective independence and this balance must be maintained in any new department that's formed. COVID-19 has also revealed deep fault lines in our higher education output. For example, the AGM of the Academy of Clinical Scientists yesterday we are told that the pandemic has demonstrated how much Ireland requires the expertise of medical scientists to respond quickly to public health issues. Yet there is a serious staffing shortage and retention challenges across all Irish hospitals and laboratories. Ireland lags behind our European counterparts in terms of relative numbers of medical scientists. We need to investment in this sector and indeed one of my colleagues adverted to the poor employment conditions that apply to casual labourers in the higher education sector. I want to pay tribute to Minister, the former Minister, Mary Mitchell O'Connor, who battled hard for the sector when she became the country's first Minister for Higher Education. In a very short time, she pushed through several reforms and I have no doubt the Minister Harrison is excellently placed to build on these. Now, in mentioning Minister Mitchell O'Connor, it would be wrong of me to pass through today's debate without drawing attention to the fact that as a junior minister, she remained unpaid for her duties while sitting at the cabinet table. And I do think, even though I have spent most of my life in the trade union movement, fighting for equal terms for comparators across various areas in education, I do think it rings a little hollow coming in here to set up a new super junior ministry at a time when there are thousands of people in this country who will not see work maybe for years to come. There's been a lot of talk this afternoon, Minister, about higher education and about researchers, innovators, etc. The one place that hasn't had, to my mind, the degree of attention that it requires is the further education sector. I will thank Limerick Senior College, which is where I started my second chance education at the age of 35. And without the expertise of the teachers that were committed to second chance learners like myself, I would never have gone on to take a degree with the London School of Economics and a postgraduate with the University of Limerick. And one of the great concerns I have as we move forward with this department, I'm delighted to see further education in there with higher education. But I hope it's not going to become the poor relation in the middle of the higher education sector or have higher education stave off as much as it can, leaving little for further education. Indeed, Senator Coyne mentioned Galway Technical Institute, another wonderful institution in Galway, delivering programmes similar to what you'll find in Limerick. And various other parts of the country in Cork, there are several further education colleges doing a fantastic job. I held my first meeting in 1996 to try and get the further education colleges recognised as a separate and distinct sector in Irish education. One of the grave concerns I had right through my 20 odd years of teaching in further education was the inability to seamlessly transfer students from further education into higher education. We had more success sending students to Wales, to Bristol, to Scotland, Edinburgh in particular, than we had in sending students to our local universities. Thankfully, people like Breen Macrae out in DCU changed a lot of that. The Blanchettstown IT, the Dun Laoghaire IT, they all changed individually, but it didn't happen as a sector. It didn't happen as a group. And we were forcing further education graduates. For example, I taught a section in computer networks where my students qualified at level six. And when they transferred into an institute of technology, they had to retake level six, because it wasn't level six ETAC, it was level six ETAC. QQI has changed some of that. But it was about the mindset that controlled that. So what I'm asking for here is that the ETBI has a place at the table, along with the HEA and anybody else, and has an equal voice and gets equal opportunity to look for funding. I think it's extremely important that that's the direction we go. Laoghaire, thank you for the time. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.