Sir, - Those who have the future of the Irish university system at heart should be grateful to Garret FitzGerald and Bill Watts (September 23rd/24th and October 3rd) for their analyses of the major defects in the Universities Bill.
Legislation is certainly necessary, and has been requested by the universities, to deal with the NUI and its constituent colleges, which are to become universities in their own right, and with Limerick and Dublin City Universities. But, besides tackling these problems, the present Bill incorporates a thinly veiled attempt to turn Irish universities into an educational arm of the State and to extend centralised bureaucratic control so as to stifle independent thought and render university autonomy meaningless.
Peter Sutherland, at the recent Humbert Summer School, pleaded for action to combat statism. Ireland remains, he pointed out, far more statist than any of our competitor nations. Sadly, the more draconian sections in the Universities Bill seem to have their origins deep in the semi state sector.
I do not believe that it will prove sufficient to amend the Bill, which should be withdrawn and redrafted to deal with the substantive non contentious matters. University legislation is sure to become an election issue, and parties which support flawed proposals will have to face the consequences. - Yours, etc.,
School of Mathematics,
Trinity College,
Dublin 2.