14 June 2005
Dr. Henry: I welcome the Minister to the House and the Bill. I echo Senator Ormonde's statement in that I would also like to be around to see the fruits of this agency's establishment but I hope there is more of a sense of urgency than has been the case to date. These suggestions were first proposed in 1999. All our times come and, as a representative of many of the graduates of the Dublin Institute of Technology, I would not like to think that I might not see the institute moved to its new home. While I welcome the Bill, I hope some sense of urgency sets in.
We are all supposed to declare our interests in various issues. I have a deep interest in this area because many of my electors are graduates of the Dublin Institute of Technology, which gave degrees to worthy graduates for 25 years. There are now more electors on the Seanad register who came through the various colleges of the Dublin Institute of Technology than came through Trinity College, Dublin. They are a valued group and I am glad that some members of the institute's staff are here.
I should acknowledge another interest, in that I am probably the only Member of the House who had any dealings with the old St. Brendan's Hospital at Grangegorman. I warmly welcome this initiative to change the land totally on which that institution was sited. I was a student there in the 1960s. When I went back in the 1980s as a member of the Eastern Health Board, little had changed. The facilities were still appalling. One building in particular, which I remember was described as the "lower house", was in such a state of dereliction that I, who did not live there, unlike some people, was terrified to even go into it during inspections. The whole building was on a slope of approximately 30 degrees. It must have been a very fine building in its day in 1830 but it was in an appalling state in the 1980s. I do not know how we in this country allowed people to live in institutions such as that.
As far as I could see, none of the lavatories had seats. Why did it seem to be all right that we noted this in repeated inspections but the place was always in the same state? The conditions in which people lived there were appalling. I remember the launch by Mr. Barry Desmond of Planning for the Future, which was assisted by many psychiatrists and by improvements in psychiatry. Decades ago, incarceration was the only possible course of action to take with some people with serious mental illnesses but, with the improvements in treatments, it was possible to make changes. I am sad that the changes have taken so long.
It is great to see the area's regeneration. No institute could be more worthy than the Dublin Institute of Technology in gaining access to those grounds. The institute has given a service to the people, not only of Dublin but also the rest of the country, from all the 39 sites it has been on. The institute has also given a service in areas that were not covered by other third level institutions, as mentioned by the Minister in her speech. When I examined the OECD report produced at the end of 2004, I was interested to see it singled out the Dublin Institute of Technology as requiring a sort of consideration separate from the other institutes of technology. I realise that the others are much newer but the OECD recognised the commitment that all those people in the Dublin Institute of Technology gave to this country for so many years.
Trying to work on so many sites must have been nearly impossible. The increase in efficiency and productivity, if one could say that about an institute of learning, will surely be phenomenal when it is on one site. We within Trinity College, Dublin, have been lucky in having people all on the same campus. The great impetus one is given by the exchange of ideas between people from different faculties is something the institute has not had until now. Science was dealt with on Kevin Street, engineering, architecture and so forth on Bolton Street, the humanities in Rathmines and music in the tyre depot on Adelaide Road for a considerable amount of time, which I always found fascinating. Perhaps the depot was not owned by Dunlop but whenever I visited the adjacent school of music, all I could worry about was whether the place would go up in smoke and whether the music students would, too.
I am extraordinarily glad that all of these diverse institutions will now be brought onto the same campus and that people from so many backgrounds and of so many ages will be there and can be taught in the best possible circumstances. The institute is one of the biggest educational institutions in the country. Every year, 20,000 people enrol in a diverse range of academic disciplines, which is a staggering number.
A great deal of the emphasis of the Minister's speech was on research. This comprises much of the emphasis placed on education in institutions nowadays. We should remember that the levels of teaching of the institute's various faculties have been incredibly high. Before one prepares people for research, they must be well taught. Of course, we need them to be interested in the industries in this country but there are fields other than industry. Even the tourism industry requires an input from the humanities, for example. When tourists come to Ireland, they do not want to be given the formula for the most efficient way of utilising beds in a hotel. They want to meet Irish people. I like to think that the persons in the tourism faculty were taught about how to promote our culture, literature and way of life and that this was considered as important as the finances and nuts and bolts of tourism. This is why I want to see more emphasis placed on the faculty of applied arts.
The OECD report placed a low level of emphasis on the humanities, for which I was sorry. The areas within the Dublin Institute of Technology's faculty of applied arts are very individual in many cases and I would like to see them given great prominence when they are relocated to Grangegorman. Promoting this is very important. I mentioned the school of music was in what appeared to me to be a tyre depot. The school moved from Adelaide Road and is now located cheek by jowl with a great many people in Rathmines and Chatham Row. When one examines what is occurring in connection with the Cork School of Music, it does appear that we who promote music and opera festivals in Ireland are not doing much to nourish and nurture those who are trying to teach or their pupils. This is an area that requires much promotion and extra comfort to be given to the people involved and I hope they are given a prominent place in the move to Grangegorman.
The Minister spoke about the faculty for the built environment, which has been revolutionary within the DIT. Where would we have been without the architects and structural engineers graduating from the institute? Great value must be placed on all of the institute's work. Interaction between the students from the various disciplines will be tremendous; they will have an enzymatic effect on each other and goodness knows what may come from this.
When the Universities Bill was going through the Houses, the possibility of giving the Dublin Institute of Technology university status was discussed at length. It is now a degree-awarding body but it was decided at that time to set up a commission to examine the institute and decide what needed to be done before it could have degree-awarding status. That commission has reported and various changes have been made by the institute in an effort to attain university status. Has the institute examined the possibility of becoming part of one of the existing universities? The Minister knows to which university I am referring. It is not difficult to deduce that I am in favour of the institute being associated with Trinity College, in the same way as the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland became associated with University College Dublin. That is an issue for another day, but perhaps the Minister could store it in the back of her mind because while the institute is more than worthy of university status in its own right, it has employed people with degrees from Trinity College for many years. Perhaps the institute would consider that option.
When the legislation establishing the Health Service Executive, HSE, went through this House, I said that I hoped it was a new initiative rather than a rebranding exercise, but I regret to say it is the latter. When Professor Brendan Drumm, who is a friend of mine, applied for the position of chief executive of the HSE and it was announced that he would be appointed to the post, I wrote to him. In my letter I said, "Brendan, I knew things were bad in Crumlin but I did not think they were as bad as all this". I do not know what is happening now but it is profoundly sad that almost a year after that legislation was passed, we still do not have a permanent chief executive for the HSE. It is not the problem of the Minister for Education and Science but people are beginning to think that the chief executive of the HSE will be assigned responsibility without authority. The small team that Professor Drumm had lined up to assist him in the reform of the health service seemed to be admirable. I am not saying this because they agree with everything I say. On the contrary, I have had sparring moments with several of them. However, they were very honourable people and I am sorry that the initiative did not progress.
It is a good idea to locate the HSE in Grangegorman. It would be nice to see the HSE, as well as new primary care facilities, mainly associated with rehabilitation, on a site that has been connected with chronic disease for so long. That is a good initiative which I warmly welcome. I thought that the HSE was going to be a constructive body but for those of us who have worked in the health service for years, the situation at present is profoundly disappointing.
I do not know what buildings on the Grangegorman site will have to be retained. I suspect that some of them have preservation orders on them because they are so old, even though they were in use until relatively recently. I ask the Minister to instil some sense of urgency into this issue. One section of her speech alarmed me where it referred to the plan. She stated:
The plan shall consist of a written statement and will indicate the objectives for the development, including the needs of the Ministers for Education and Science and Health and Children, the DIT, the HSE and the Grangegorman neighbourhood. It must also include the provision of facilities to exploit any research, consultancy or development work undertaken by the agency in conjunction with the DIT or the HSE. In addition, the plan must take account of the needs of the local community by facilitating access to and use of facilities by residents in the Grangegorman neighbourhood.
Senator Ormonde and I would like to see the Grangegorman development take place in our lifetime, but if all of this type of consultation is to take place before there is any action, that will not happen; or we will be brought to the opening in wheelchairs and will be feebly asking "what did you say?" I hope that a sense of urgency can be generated because the Minister's plans are very worthwhile.
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