Sir, In the context of the traditional freedom enjoyed by universities in Ireland, the present Universities Bill can only be described as oppressive. The Bill's excessive detail puts universities in the position whereby any deemed infringement of the provisions in its many parts, chapters, sections, subsections and schedules is liable to become an offence against the law of the land.
Governments cannot be allowed to control educational establishments in such detail and to such effect. The star act in the Bill is the Minister for Education, who appears 70 times in its pages. The previous enlightened structure, that used the Higher Education Authority to keep political control to a minimum, is to be scrapped, and the Minister for Education is now cast in the role of an opposing scrum half, ready to pounce on any university that appears to fumble the put in.
If the Bill is honest it should also propose changing the name of the authority to HEACME. The Higher Education Advisory Council to the Minister of Education it would no longer be an authority in any meaningful sense of the word. Under the Bill university staff will become functionaries of the State, where their performance indicators etc. are discussed periodically on the floor of the Dail. If it is passed into law this Bill will simply be the end of the liberal ethos of the universities as it has evolved in this country. Is this the will of the people? Yours, etc. 6 Mayville Tce, Dalkey, Co Dublin.