University College Dublin and Trinity College Dublin are considering plans to merge some of their graduate schools, a leading UCD academic told an Oireachtas committee yesterday.
Prof Brian McKenna, principal of the new College of Life Science at UCD, told the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture and Food the President of UCD and the Provost at Trinity had agreed in principle to a merger of some of their graduate schools, although this move had not yet been ratified by the governing bodies.
He said that this proposal was not yet in the public domain and he asked members to keep it confidential. The committee, however, was meeting in public session and journalists were present.
Later a UCD spokeswoman said the college president was "flabbergasted" at the claims made by Prof McKenna to the committee.
"He is wrong. There is no agreement between UCD and Trinity. . . Efforts for what's known as the fourth-level agenda [co-operation betweeen all seven universities] are ongoing. Universities recognise the part they need to play in the next round of economic development. But there is to be no merger," she said.
Prof McKenna also told the committee that the Government's chief science adviser, Dr Barry McSweeney, will recommend to the Cabinet that research funding be effectively doubled in the years ahead.
He said the Cabinet will shortly receive proposals to increase research funding to around €4 billion in the next National Development Plan, compared to €2.1 billion under the current NDP.
He said under the current NDP, research funding was available only for projects in the bio-tech and information and communication technology areas. However, the proposal from Dr McSweeney would see the research programme under the next NDP expanded to include the agricultural and food science area.
He told the committee that there were plans to double the numbers of Ph.Ds between now and 2009. However, such an increase was dependent on research funding. "We have to pay to support them [graduate students] through this critical stage of life. They will not come for nothing," he said.
Prof Jim Phelan of the department of rural environment at the UCD College of Life Sciences told the committee that he believed that the productive agriculture sector would continue to face pressure in the future.
He forecast that a form of "dualism" would emerge in Irish agriculture. This would see one part of the industry operate on a very high-tech level. The other part would work on a much less intensive level.