Brendan Smith: All-Ireland university must serve central border

Go raibh míle maith agat, Cathaoirleach, and like you and the other speakers, I welcome our guests here today, and I have to say it's very seldom we have the good opportunities at a committee meeting to welcome every opening contribution here today. They have been very positive, very heartening, and it's great to hear the very positive message on what's happening. When I was elected first to the Dáil in 1992, I don't think I envisaged at that time that we'd be talking in an Oireachtas education committee about an all-Ireland university. This shows what the potential that there is for further development on this island that has arisen because of the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. I think Dr Ryan Feeney would have been with us at Oireachtas committee meetings in the past and doing presentations here. We knew what the blockages were over the years, and it's very heartening that we're at this position today, and I welcome every one of the contributions that have been made. It's great that we're talking about this strategic partnership, an all-Ireland university, and I compliment the people who are making this possible. Minister Laudis told us when he took up office first that he was very determined to drive this forward, and I know that our co-hero here has been a powerful advocate for Dundalk IT in the Oireachtas, both as a senator and as a TD. I've had a quite close working relationship representing two of the southern Ulster counties, Cavan, Monaghan. I've had a lot of engagement over the years with Dundalk IT, and I have seen the value of it is, not just to the Dublin-Belfast corridor, but to the broader North East region. I take the opportunity to compliment Sheila Flanagan and Irene McCausland. I know you work closely with the Institutes of Further Education in Cavan and Monaghan and with Cavan and Monaghan ETB, and I sincerely hope that that can be continued in the new partnership that you will have. I know that my colleague and councillor Clifford Kelly, who had a long association with Dundalk Institute and continues to have a long association with Cavan and Monaghan ETB, he always tells me in glowing terms of the important role that both of you play in the ETB and in the Institutes of Further Education in Cavan and Monaghan, and I think it's important to put that on the record here as well. And I sincerely hope that in the new iteration for Dundalk in the strategic partnership with Queen's that that will continue and be built upon. And I hope that there are arrangements, as you all know, for some people who start off in a college of further education that they can go on, do the first year maybe of a course that's being delivered at an IT level. I hope that that can be continued as well. Just with regard to, and Deputy Dough sort of mentioned it, I always get nervous when I hear just about the Dublin-Belfast corridor. I always think cities will look after themselves, but if you were a representative of a central border region, I'm always nervous that we can be caught between different regions. And only this morning I got a reply back from Montaishook I had raised on questions about the shared island about the need to ensure that the needs of the central border region weren't ignored. I'm talking about Cavan, Monaghan and our neighbours in Fermanagh, Armagh and Tyrone as well. And actually, Montaishook has agreed that the shared island working with the NESC will do some studies on the challenges and the opportunities for the central border region. We have to ensure that that particular geographic area, north and south, that it's not, in the event of particular economic challenges in that, that with the infrastructure put in place and we have that economic capacity built up and strengthened, I think it's very important. And the role of the new partnership, both at Queen's and in Dundalk, I think can be critical in ensuring that you strengthen the capacity of that particular area as well as naturally of the immediate catchment area as well. Just with regard to mobility, I think it's a very important question. What about the entrance requirements and the number of subjects that our students take at the even start as opposed to students in Northern Ireland taking at A level? Can that difficulty be dealt with to ensure that people are not disadvantaged in regard to seek an entry to a college here or university here? And also, one other thing, can the department give us an assurance that the relevant legislative measures will be gone through the Oireachtas in time to ensure that the students entering Dundalk in 2027, that their awards will be from Queen's, if that's the particular wish to go that Professor Greer referred to as well. Thank you. Go maith agat. Dr. Damer. Just in the context of the entry requirements from students coming from both jurisdictions, students coming on to the Dundalk campus, as they currently do, will enter through the CAO system. And so that system is timed relative to the Irish Leaving Cert results. So we currently have a system in place for accommodating the Northern Irish students with the A-level equivalencies. And that works well at the moment. There is one issue that would make it easier for us is the differential time between the release of the A-level results and the Irish Leaving Cert results. And that, I know there's many people trying to work on it. That is a practical challenge and we hope we'll recover some of those missing weeks that have crept in to make that component easier. But those systems are in place at the moment, Deputy, in terms of getting the students in. We have something like 120 new applicants this year coming from Northern Ireland with A-levels. Do you want to add to that, Sheila? We have a good track record in terms of attracting students from Northern Ireland to Dundalk. We have a working group that meets regularly throughout the academic year. We constantly look at and recognise qualifications from Northern Ireland, including A-levels, applied A-levels, the BTECs, the OCR Cambridge technicals and any combination of those as part of our entry requirements into DKIT. So we've been doing this for quite a number of years and it's relatively seamless. The main difficulty is the delay in relation to the Leaving Cert results compared to the UK system, the A-levels. There have been occasions when we have lost students because they've been made offers earlier than students who are waiting for Leaving Cert results, so that is a difficulty. But we have a track record. To come back to your point, Deputy, in relation to your concerns with regard to access and ensuring that we maintain our track record in relation to access, both Irene and myself work with the ETBs across the region, but we also work within Northern Ireland. We have a north-eastern further higher education alliance that includes Southern Regional College, so we will be extending right along the border and out into our region to ensure that we continue to recruit students from a range of areas, not just straight through A-levels or through the traditional Leaving Cert route. Could I just make one comment? Thank you very much, Sheila, for your response. Could I just say, South West College in Enniskillen, some of my constituents go there and there's a good working relationship. I presume, and I know this isn't directly relevant to the subject before us, I presume Queen's University has linkages with the further education colleges in Northern Ireland as well. I'm always particularly interested in South West College, it's beside me and I know of the valued courses that they provide for plenty of students from my own area as well. Thank you, Okaheri. I'm very happy to answer that one for you, Deputy. Absolutely, and through the academic integration group we have a thriving tertiary education system at Queen's and work in partnership with all of the FE colleges across Northern Ireland. And in the group that Sheila and myself co-chair, we are working then at making sure that we have that thriving tertiary education system and having the flexibility and the adaptability for students across the whole of Ireland to then gain access to either Dundalk or Queen's through foundation pathways and a whole range of different degree options. And the Department for Student, yeah, Keith. Yeah, thanks, Kaheri. Look, Deputy Smith asked about the pace of the legislation. It's definitely above my pay grade to prejudge what the Oireachtas wants to do with legislation, but what I can give you an assurance on, Deputy, is we'll work at pace. My colleague, Uíochaibh Uíochaibh, Edom Okaheri and Paul Kavanagh, all in the department, have delivered a heads of bill as quickly as I've ever seen in 25 years in the civil service. And we'll continue to work at pace to make sure that we're very conscious of timelines and we'll continue to work at pace to deliver something that can be considered by the Oireachtas. And then after that, it's up to our elected representatives. The pace of legislation for us at times can be very frustrating, but we'll eliminate any barriers like that for this particular project, I think. Thank you.