'Disheartening' to see academic freedom curtailed in the US, minister says

The minister for higher education also said greater gender balance and skilled immigrants are key to resolving the huge shortfall in construction workers in Ireland

James Lawless told the Cork Chamber Business Breakfast: 'There’s no question we will need to continue to have immigrant labour.' Picture: Noel Sweeney

The minister for higher education said it was disheartening to hear stories from the US where universities are having funding pulled and are not operating with the same level of academic freedom.

Speaking at the Cork Chamber Business Breakfast, Mr Lawless said that while philosophical debates about academic freedom are important, the withdrawal of funding makes the issue very concrete and real.

He was responding to UCC president John O'Halloran, who said he had just returned from the US where he said colleagues from Harvard were "in tears" about the impact on their universities.  Mr O'Halloran said supporting the autonomy of universities is essential to maintaining a healthy democracy and that Ireland risked damaging it if that balance was not protected. 

The minister agreed and pointed to the recent Hungarian elections as a rare piece of good news on that front. "We're not supposed to take sides in other countries in the elections, but I don't think it's controversial to say that the new government in Hungary are expected to be more along the lines of liberal democracy and academic freedom and freedom of expression than the outgoing government were," he said.

Mr Lawless said the Government launched a Global Talent Call, inviting leading academics and researchers who were reconsidering their positions in the US to consider relocating to Ireland, and that the initiative had attracted strong interest, with a number of appointments expected to be announced.

Construction sector

In a wide-ranging speech and discussion, Mr Lawless said greater gender balance and skilled immigrants are key to resolving the huge shortfall in construction workers in Ireland. He was asked about the property industry's figure of a 100,000 shortfall in the required number of construction workers need to attain housing targets.

The minister described the situation as “a huge challenge” and that the first step required is to expand the domestic talent pipeline, saying “we need to train our workers… we need to maximise our potential workforce”. 

However, he said the industry needed to draw from a wider pool of workers, particularly by improving gender balance. He said construction has traditionally been male-dominated, pointing to the image of construction as “hard hat, work boots, building site” work.

The minister said modern methods of construction also play their part as the sector moves toward factory-based, technology-driven production. If adopted successfully, “we can get a 40% productivity yield,” which would mean “the 100,000 now becomes 60,000”. 

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Even then, he acknowledged there would still be a shortfall, but a much more manageable one. He also said the shortfall could not be addressed by only using domestic measures. 

“There’s no question we will need to continue to have immigrant labour,” he said, which should be “value-added immigration” involving workers with relevant skills and qualifications, who are “very valued and very welcome.”

Speaking on Cork, Mr Lawless said the region was now a "premier industrial and innovation hub". He referenced the recent Tyndall National Institute expansion announcement, describing it as an example of the kind of research infrastructure investment he intended to continue. 

He also noted that under the EU CHIPS Act, Tyndall had been designated as a pilot line for semiconductor development, meaning the EU was building its own semiconductor base right in Cork.