Further and Higher Education
Dail Éireann — 2025-12-11
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James Lawless (FF), Kildare North

All-Ireland entities are always fashionable in my household. We can have all the citizens' assemblies and deliberate as much as we want to but doing it for real is what counts and that is what we are doing here. There is a very ambitious timetable to make that collaboration come together. I intend to bring legislation through the Houses in the new year to set out the mechanics of how it will be enabled. It is important that Dundalk Institute of Technology continues to enjoy strong autonomy as part of the HEA landscape while being a fully fledged university institute and college of Queen's University with all the powers to award degrees conferred by Queen's University as part of that. Both entities will benefit. Queen's University will also benefit significantly from the collaboration. There are specialties, disciplines and knowledge in each institution that can be shared and benefited from. I always say "ní neart go cur le chéile" - we are stronger together and that is evident in this all-Ireland collaboration.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-12-11/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:48+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-11