The Joint Oireachtas Committee on Education, Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science has signed off on an appointed day for the establishment of a technological university (TU) and its name in both English and Irish, under the Technological Universities 2018 Act, for a TU for the Midlands and Midwest. Deputy Jackie Cahill has today (07th July) confirmed that the Minister for Further and Higher Education intends to set 1st October 2021 as the appointed day for the establishment of a new TU to be known in English as the Technological University of the Shannon: Midlands Midwest and Ollscoil Teicneolaíochta na Sionainne: Lár Tíre, An tIarthar Láir as Gaeilge.
Speaking on this today, Cahill said: “This evening, the Dáil will officially vote to establish university campuses in both Thurles and Clonmel, with a commencement date of October 1st this year. I was glad to receive this positive news from my Fianna Fáil colleague, Niall Collins, who is the Minister of State at the Department of Further and Higher Education yesterday evening. I also understand that the positions for the interim four person Governing Authority of the newly established Technological University of the Shannon: Midlands Midwest are also being advertised at Minister Harris’s direction.
“This is another positive step towards officially having University status in place for both Thurles and Clonmel by the start of the next academic year, it is an important milestone in the expansion of our country’s Technological University network nationwide, and it further adds to the security and certainty of third level education in the Premier County for generations to come”.
“I will vote with pride this evening as a Thurles man and Tipperary’s Government TD, as the Dáil officially approves University status for Thurles and Clonmel”, Cahill concluded.
