Speech by Dr. Michael Mortell,
President, University College, Cork
at the Conferring of Degrees and Diplomas,
Thursday, 17 October, 1996
 
The Universities Bill 1996

I would like to say a few words this morning about the proposed legislation for all the Universities. The Bill was published at the end of July, and is expected to get a second reading in the Dáil next week. So it is a matter which is very much on our minds at the moment.

This is the first major piece of legislation to cover all the universities in nearly a hundred years. And, of course, we can expect that it will reflect the concerns and thrust of today's society - particularly as seen through the eyes of the legislators.

But we should also be able to accept that the legislation would reflect the enduring position and the role of the University within society as established over a history going back 900 years.

The Magna Carta of European Universities, signed by the Rectors of European Universities at the time of the celebration of the 900th anniversary of the founding of the University of Bologne, emphasises

"The University is an autonomous institution at the heart of society, differently organised because of geography and historical heritage. It produces, examines, appraises and hands down culture by research and teaching. To meet the needs of the world around it, its research and teaching must be morally and intellectually independent of all potential authority and economic power".

This is quite a careful statement. The autonomy of the University relates to its teaching and research - that it is independent of outside authority and power. We have only to reflect for a moment on what happened to society and universities in Eastern Europe after the Second World War to see the fundamental importance of the independent voice that the university has always been.

The university is "differently organised" - to reflect, and protect, the independence of teaching and research within the institution. And society is best served in the long term by having such an independent voice in its midst. History has time and again demonstrated this.

If we reflect for a moment on how long this university (ie. UCC) has been in existence - 150 years - preceding even the existence of the State; or if we reflect on the 900 year existence of universities, we can see that we, who have the privilege of being in a university, are not what Edmund Burke called "entire masters", but only "temporary possessors and life-renters", and we have to be mindful of what "we have received from our ancestors and what is due to posterity".

We hold the university in trust; handed down to us by our ancestors, to be passed on by us to our descendants - again in Edmund Burke's words: a "partnership between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born".

Any legislation about universities has, therefore, to respect the special position of universities within society in our Western culture. Any legislation which fails to do so is breach of trust by our society today with our ancestors and our descendants.

Over a number of years, prior to the publication of the Universities Bill, there were a number of statements of policy and principles underlying proposed legislation with which the universities were in agreement.

The "Programme for a Partnership Government" recognised the need "to protect the independent and traditional democratic decision-making structures of the universities, and to enact legislation that will preserve that diversity, and enhance their developmental role".

The Minister for Education in her Position Paper says -

"The guiding principles and considerations which inform the Minister's approach to university legislation are based on respect for the contribution which a strong and independent university sector makes to our society".

and again in the same Position Paper

"The principle of the right of a university to regulate its affairs in accordance with its ethos and traditions is of central importance, as is an expression of academic, operational and management freedom, consistent with the effective and efficient use of resources and accountability to the public, to give practical effect to that right".

Here the Minister has underlined her commitment "to a strong and independent university sector" and to "the right of a university to regulate its affairs in accordance with its ethos and traditions.

We do note that "academic, operational and management freedom" has to be "consistent with ...accountability to the public".

The university sector is the recipient of a large amount of public money, of the order of £200 million p.a. by way of block grant. The universities fully accept that they have to be accountable in an open and transparent manner for the expenditure of this public money. And we are! We account to the Higher Education Authority for this money. The Controller and Auditor General spends up to three weeks each year in UCC checking our accounts. We have our own Auditors.

The concept of accountability for public money is not a problem for us. The level of detail may be, which, of itself, may be an inefficient use of public money. In this context we agree with the Report "Delivering Better Government" where it says that the principles of regulatory reform should be

"to improve the quality rather than the quantity of regulations ... and to simplify necessary regulations and related procedures as much as possible"

The aim is, according to this Report,

"to make the system more transparent and more effective by allocating authority and corresponding accountability at various levels"

The members of the university will have judged the Bill against the background I have outlined. While we in UCC welcome the contents of the Bill as regards greater autonomy and status within the NUI, - which is what we asked for , -the context is changed by the insertion a greater degree of control in other parts of the Bill. So the Bill is not as enabling as it could be.

There are under current legislation, in my view, sufficient safeguards of the public interest; so that certain provisions of this Bill are unnecessarily specific, and intrude unnecessarily on legitimate operational freedom.

There is room for significant and substantial improvement in the Bill in the public interest. We look forward to continuing dialogue with the Minister and a very much improved Bill following the Committee Stage in Dáil Éireann.