I move amendment No. 30: In page 31, line 20, after “of” to insert “print media such as newspapers,”. I withdraw the amendment and reserve the right to reintroduce.

I move amendment No. 31: In page 31, line 22, to delete “as far as practicable”. I withdraw the amendment and reserve the right to reintroduce.

Amendment No. 34 is in this group. It is a variation of amendment No. 32, with a slight change as it mentions an annual basis and an accessible format. If the Minister of State will not accept my amendment, I urge him to accept the amendments tabled by the Labour Party. They are both very reasonable and based on the same principle. The register of political parties should not have arcane knowledge for reference, for officials or for those who know how to exercise freedom of information requests. It should be a matt…

With respect, people saying they are available tomorrow and on Friday is straightforwardly disingenuous. This was the first item placed on the Order Paper this year. The Bill has been on the Order Paper, ready to move, for months but it has been chosen to progress it in the past two to three weeks of this Seanad term. This is about this decision and future ones. My memory in respect of a request having been made and to whom it was made is the same. I concur in that regard. There is an opportunity. Let us move to th…

It could have been brought forward at an earlier point. The Minister is bringing it forward before the summer recess and framing it as emergency legislation while at the same time we have been told it is foundational legislation that will change the agenda for the next 50 years. If it is significant legislation that has significant repercussions and we should be allowed to debate it for as long as is required, with that debate to continue in autumn if necessary. I ask the Minister to be clear on whether he is oppos…

I support this amendment from Senator Norris. It is very useful in that it is providing a definition in the Act of an academic member. It is important we be very clear there are academics who are manifestly part of an t-údarás, who are academics doing the work of academics - teaching or carrying out research - and who have held such posts at the time of their appointment. It is a useful clarification. We will come later to some of the further substantive amendments in respect of the constitution of the board and th…

I may table an amendment on Report Stage in respect of the definition relating to the academic member to address the gender issue Senator Norris highlighted. The Minister's response indicates that we do not necessarily need people with academic experience on the board. An t-údarás is given extraordinary powers. With respect to Senator Malcolm Byrne, the Minister mentioned that there was previously discretion, but this Bill centralises extraordinary powers in an t-údarás. There is a shift. There is much less discret…

I will be very brief because I am keen to move to the next grouping in which I have a number of amendments relating to equality. In response to the debate, I wish to correct two points that were made. First, it was suggested that the measures being put forward relate to governance and finance solely. The other suggestion is that any policies that might be relevant will be developed with the Higher Education Authority, or an t-údarás. In this Bill, in sections 76, 119 and, I think, in another section, there are extr…

I do not want to come back in. I want to move on, but I want to note that this is an inaccurate representation of what I said.

It is about putting them into legislation-----

-----and naming them.

I move amendment No. 3: In page 13, line 18, after “disadvantaged,” to insert “persons to whom the Equal Status Acts 2000 to 2018 apply to,”. These amendments all relate to issues of equality. It gives me a useful opportunity, therefore, to clarify the points that were made previously. I am not against public policy existing but to be very clear, and I was clear in my intervention that my concerns are that there are requirements in the Bill for governing bodies of universities and individual institutions to impleme…

I do not think we are discussing amendment No. 4 yet. It will be moved separately.

I apologise. I was wrong. I did not actually speak to amendment No. 4. I thank the Minister for speaking to it.

Given the Minister said he will engage, we will follow up on the issues of equity and equality of opportunity. There is always a danger when we name some groups and not others in legislation. That is something we get warned off quite often. Certain groups are mentioned but, for example, members of the Traveller community are not named. We know there are very specific obstacles for those who are parents, but in particular those who are parenting alone and have that family status. There is a danger that in talking ab…

The question of quality was mentioned. I have amendments on this that I hope we will get to discuss later. I refer to the value attributed to excellence with regard to the functions. On the question of financial transparency, to which I hope we will return on Report Stage, financial transparency is important but we must not end up with a narrow version of value for money. Therefore, I have a number of amendments. In the debate, we must engage with issues such as quality rather than a narrowed version of value for m…

I move amendment No. 4: In page 13, line 19, after "society" to insert "and social classes". I propose to withdraw the amendment but I reserve the right to reintroduce it.

I will be very brief. Given the broadness of the definition, the reference in the Frascati Manual and the Minister's acknowledgement of the importance of the humanities, I wish to note that, at a later point, I will be introducing amendments because I am concerned that in the sets of partnerships envisaged in the legislation, Science Foundation Ireland is mentioned but the Irish Research Council and the Health Research Board, which have very important roles in the humanities, are not equivalently mentioned. I am su…

I move amendment No. 6: In page 13, to delete lines 33 and 34. These amendments predominantly relate to the issues of the definition of "student union" and indeed, a large number of amendments throughout this Bill relate to the important role of students' unions. We will later discuss my amendments with regard to ensuring that there is not an erosion of the role and representation of students' unions within specific institutions of higher education, where the lowering of numbers is lowering the level of representat…

When we come back, any time taken should be added back as an extension. If that means everything moves later-----