The academic community needs to do more to stimulate public debate about Ireland's current economic success and what direction should be taken in the future, the Conference of Religious in Ireland (CORI) has said.
Its spokesman, Father Sean Healy, said that with "some notable exceptions" the academic community had not articulated enough ideas on what direction the State should go.
Speaking at a ceremony to mark the election of 13 new fellows and 50 new scholars at Trinity College Dublin, Father Healy said: "We need an analysis of our current situation and we also need people to articulate a vision for the future; the academic world has a huge role to play in that."
He said that apart from the contribution of academics, the other issues facing the education system were the "scandal" of adult illiteracy and high drop-out rates from the second level which were "storing up problems for the future".
Father Healy said academics could "contribute to human development in a variety of ways". The Irish academic community "has a long history of promoting individual excellence, and this is very important. But it also has a major role to play in ensuring that society develops in a progressive way and this, too, is important," he declared. "Clearly, a great deal remains to be done if Ireland is to have a genuinely inclusive society, one that provides a real place for all. This is a substantial challenge and it requires a substantial response if it is to be adequately addressed," he said.
Academics, he said, had a key role is contributing to the development of an effective response to this challenge.
"There are crucial questions to be addressed. What should be the core guiding vision? What frameworks should guide policy if this core guiding vision is to be real? What mechanisms and processes are required if policy is to be delivered effectively, efficiently and inclusively?" he asked.
He added: "An ongoing public debate is needed around these and similar questions. For too long the answers to these questions have been implicit in policy debates and, dare I say, even in some academic circles. Only rarely have they been addressed and debated explicitly".
The 13 new fellows elected at yesterday's ceremony were: Dr Jurgen Barkhoff, Dr Daniel Bradley, Mr Paul Coughlan, Mr John Donegan, Dr Aileen Douglas, Dr Philip Lane, Dr Barry Lehane, Dr Daniel McCarthy, Dr Charles Patterson, Dr Paul Walsh, Dr Jean Whyte, Prof John Clarkson and Prof William Edward Augustine McDevitt.