Proposed Legislation
Dail Éireann — 2026-04-23
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Richard Boyd Barrett (PBP), Dún Laoghaire

I can see the attraction of university status for Dundalk as an all-island university, etc., but that leaves Dún Laoghaire IADT out on its own with no clear pathway forward. In particular, I am concerned for the staff and the workers, their terms and conditions and the sustainability of the IADT. If everybody who used to be in an IT is now in a university, who wants to go to IADT, but if IADT is to get university status, is it to be done under the Technological Universities Act 2018 so that the staff retain their existing terms and conditions? That is the way the staff would like it to be done. That is their clear declared position, and they are quite angry.
The Teachers' Union of Ireland, TUI, deplored the way in which the announcement was made, that it had not been consulted with in advance, that the authorities of Queen's and Dundalk and the Government clearly involved in the discussions around this make an announcement but that there was no consultation with the TUI and with the workers. This needs to be addressed.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-04-23/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:48+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-04-23