SEANAD:REFERRING TO a report said to recommend the merger of University College Dublin and Trinity College, Seán Barrett (Ind) said it was about time the Minister for Education got a grip on the Higher Education Authority (HEA) for "publishing" such shoddy work with such damaging consequences for Irish education.

According to The Irish Times, the report had been prepared without consultation with the colleges and the international panel which produced it had worked solely on the basis of a portfolio of information and statistics about Irish higher education, Mr Barrett said.

The Minister should come to the House because the amount of mischief-making by the HEA against those who worked in Irish universities had to stop.

Slipshod analysis by people who never actually talked to anyone who did the work in the lecture hall was not acceptable. He estimated that about 140 alleged experts had been flown in to report on Irish education. They had never gone to a lecture or given one.

David Cullinane (SF) said the report had been commissioned by the HEA and had been carried out by a panel of experts, whatever Mr Barrett might say.

It was important to publish it before it was decommissioned by so-called experts within the university sector, where university politics would come into play in relation to many of the recommendations that the report might contain.