When I was in boarding school the notion of expulsion sent a shiver of terror down our schoolboy spines. No one in their right mind wanted to be expelled. However, last Tuesday I deliberately provoked my own suspension from Seanad Eireann because this was the last desperate tactic I had to prevent a disastrous series of amendments to the Trinity College Dublin and the University of Dublin (Charters and Letters Patent Amendment) Bill, 1997, being passed by the House.

In nearly 14 years as a member of the Seanad I have only once previously been suspended from the House. This was during a major dispute with the then cathaoirleach, Sean Doherty, and I successfully challenged the legality of that suspension in the High Court. One does not lightly enter into the kind of behaviour that leads to exclusion from the House.

To many people the source of the row last Tuesday must seem extraordinarily petty, the academic equivalent of the old theological conundrum about how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. The Bill in question arose as a by-product of the Universities Bill, 1997. When this Bill was going through the House the university senators opposed certain elements within it vigorously on the grounds that they impinged dangerously on the principles of academic freedom and intellectual integrity.

Senator Shane Ross and myself in particular went so far as to vote against the Bill at second stage. However, in consultation with the board of Trinity College we did manage eventually to secure every amendment the college required. In addition, Trinity was permitted to introduce a private Bill making some changes to the composition of the board.

The present Bill, which was introduced to the House on behalf of and with the full approval of Trinity, gives effect to a reconstitution of the board of the college. Under this the de facto position whereby members of the student body and the junior academic staff are permitted to sit on the board of the college is given legal validity. For the first time it also gives the Minister for Education and Science the power to nominate one member to the board, following consultation with the Provost.

In these days of huge subsidies from the Exchequer to the university it is very difficult to sustain an argument that the taxpayer should have no representation whatsoever at the level of the board. Moreover, our attempts to secure the integrity of academic freedom were so successful that two amendments put forward by Prof Joe Lee and myself, having been accepted by the Government, were subsequently introduced into their legislation by the Swedish government who were impressed by what we had done.

The Irish Federation of University Teachers went so far as to publish in its journal an article celebrating the degree to which the principles of academic freedom and scholarly integrity had been enshrined in the Bill as a result of these two proposals.

However, a tiny minority within Trinity, who clearly had no understanding of the reality of politics, has sought at every stage to undermine the Bill, and I have no doubt that this latest tendentious attempt to amend the Trinity Bill merely provides camouflage for an indirect attempt to sabotage the whole thing.

Certainly, the officers of the university have given me to understand that if the Bill were to be so amended the college would have no alternative but to withdraw it in its entirety. If the disputed amendments were to be passed by the House, chaos would ensue and even the validity of the degrees conferred by the university might be impugned. This would be a tragedy for Trinity and for the future of education in Ireland.

We are now in a situation where all three elected representatives of the graduates of the university as well as the Provost, fellows and scholars of the college and the Senate of the University are overwhelmingly in favour of this Bill. Yet an attempt is being made to undermine the entire thing by means of vexatious amendments.

The mechanism being used to destroy the Bill is an attempt to suggest that Trinity College and the University of Dublin are completely separate entities and to remove all reference to the University of Dublin from the Bill. This is, as I said in the debate, mischief-making of the nastiest and most intrusive kind from outside the college.

It is, moreover, done in flagrant defiance of the only persuasive legal authority, in the form of a judgment given on this precise matter by the Master of the Rolls in Ireland, in the High Court of Judicature in 1888. This arose from the bequest of a large sum of money to the college from one Richard Touhill Reid.

The description of the intended legatee, i.e. "the Corporation of the University of Dublin" was sufficiently vague to incite the acquisitive instincts of the Senate of the University of Dublin, as opposed to Trinity College, to try to claim the money for themselves. It was like a family dispute over an inheritance.

The judgment of the Master of the Rolls concluded that Trinity College and the University of Dublin are "so inseparably connected that their titles are used throughout as synonymous terms". Nothing could demonstrate more clearly that the proposed amendments removing the University of Dublin from all mention in the Bill are not properly founded in law.

Very significantly, it is also a matter of grave discourtesy to the university and its graduates for outsiders to blunder in this fashion. Every group in our society has claimed the right to name itself. That is how, for example, one group made the transition from tinkers to itinerants to Travellers. And another group made the transition from queer to gay.

It is an elementary courtesy to allow a component body of our society to choose its own name and title, and it is astonishing that, without any legal base, some elements would wish to withdraw this courtesy from our oldest university. It is, of course, plain that the matter of title in question is an irrelevance and that the net effect of passing such amendments would be to sabotage the entire Bill.

For this reason I attempted to talk out the Bill so that an opportunity would be allowed for mature reflection on the part of Fianna Fail and negotiation with the Government on the part of the university.

What was involved was essentially a filibuster. Pursuing this line I continued advocating a compromise which I felt would save face on both sides and I refused the Cathaoirleach's instruction to resume my seat. As a result there was a vote and I was expelled.

We had agreed that all three Trinity senators would go out one by one. Senator Ross was not reached on Tuesday but bravely faced the firing squad on Wednesday. My other colleague did not find it possible, at least on this occasion, to disobey the Cathaoirleach's ruling and so stayed in the House.

What we have secured is an opportunity, a breathing space in which the university authorities can talk directly to Government and seek to resolve this quite unnecessary dispute.