I do not get the point of amendment No. 60, in particular. The Bill clearly proposes that the chief executive will be appointed by the board following the usual process that will come through the Public Appointments Service. If we inserted that amendment, it would exclude anyone who, in the preceding three years, had been directly employed by the Government or a Minister thereof. Therefore, any public or civil servant who had been employed by the Government would be excluded from applying for the role, while anybod…

Universities are obliged to adhere to all terms of the GDPR in any event, so these amendments will not be relevant.

I am tempted to shout "bingo".

I have some sympathy for the proposal by Senator Clonan. I would almost have preferred if the wording of the amendment stated "students of the institution", which would have incorporated students' unions. The way that the provision is phrased is "students or the students' unions". My fear is that if a governing body or the management of the institution interpreted it in a particular way, then they could look to play the students' union off against the student body or, if they sought a particular outcome, they might…

I wish to be associated with the vote of thanks to all of the members of staff in the Seanad and in the Houses of the Oireachtas more generally. We certainly could not do our job without their help, and also the work of our secretarial assistants. I hope all of the staff will get a well-deserved break at some stage over the summer. I congratulate the Houses of the Oireachtas on its organisation of the Mná sa Seanad yesterday. It was great to see and hear Tras Honan. Ms Honan made such an enormous contribution to Ir…

I thank the Minister for coming to the House. It is important to acknowledge his work and that of his officials. He has put an incredible amount of work into this. He has chosen not to play politics with it. He wanted to resolve an issue affecting significant numbers of individuals and families. I am speaking specifically to the amendment. We all value our homes. They are where we live and probably represent the biggest investment most of us ever make. We know how much money we put into them and, therefore, know wh…

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire. I commend Senator Warfield on bringing forward this motion. He has been a strong advocate on this issue for quite some time. I also commend the team from Give Us The Night. I was not able to make the briefing this afternoon, although my intern went to it. Certainly, those involved with Give Us The Night have been very active on this issue for a long time. During the Covid period, we missed so many aspects of our lives that we took for granted. Young people, in particular, lost two years…

This issue has exercised both the Minister and his officials quite a bit over the last number of weeks. I thank him and his officials for the briefing and the engagement around this issue. It should be clear that there is a long-running tradition of effective student representation in Ireland and-----

Indeed. I referenced effective student representation specifically. The key point is that within this legislation, there is an acknowledgement by the Minister of the role of students. There is a challenge in ensuring we always have independent students' unions. In outlining some of the legal difficulties, I hope the Minister can assuage some of the concerns and fears because it has happened in the past that non-elected representatives were appointed to a governing authority. I agree with Senator Ruane, and the Mini…

I am concerned about some remarks that Senator Gavan made concerning private institutions. Ireland is unusual in that about 95% of students attend publicly-funded or public institutions, which is different to most other countries. We have one of the highest third level education participation rates in the world, with about 62% of 18-to-20-year age cohort attending. As for the money Senator Gavan pointed out as going to private institutions, it includes funding for institutions such as the Royal College of Surgeons …

I propose a suspension of the House for 15 minutes.

My concern relates to the fact that we have a small number of private higher education providers that meet a need within the State. I am a big supporter of the public education system. Senator Gavan seems to suggest that these providers are somehow damaging our education system. They are not; they are supplementing it. The SUSI grant scheme should be extended to those other institutions. Some of them, such as the Royal College of Surgeons and the National College of Ireland, are what you might call halfway-house in…

On a point of order, a Chathaoirligh-----

On a point of order, I do have an issue. We had an agreement that we would not guillotine this legislation and that we would not rush through it. We have been called in here to vote but just so people are aware of what we are voting on. It is not that it is substantive. The vote is on amendment No. 13, which is to delete the words "and environmental development and sustainability" and substitute ", environmental and sustainable development". To call in Members of the House to have to vote on what is not a substanti…

If Senator Higgins would speak to the amendments-----

If the Senator would speak to the amendments rather than calling votes on minor issues-----

I thank the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach. I want to apologise to Senator Higgins because at no stage did I want to imply that Senator Higgins did not take her role as a legislator particularly seriously. The point I was making, however, concerning this is that there is no guillotine on this discussion but simply because there is no guillotine does not mean that Members should speak at length and repeat points that have been made in earlier debates. I make the point that when there were complaints made about Committee St…

It is important that people speak to the specific amendments that are before them which is part of the point I want to make.

It is essential to note that this legislation is not guillotined and is being allowed to be continued. That was something the Government agreed to do because there was a request and a perception earlier that this Bill was rushed. It was not a question that it was rushed but it was, quite frankly, that people were speaking too long on the particular amendments. However, it is going to be difficult to see that guillotines will not be provided for in the future if people feel that they have to speak ad infinitum on pa…

I am happy, a Chathaoirligh Gníomhach, and I ask that at all Stages during this debate that all speakers stick to the amendments that are before them.