OPINION: No excuses - 10,000 students at Magee by 2030

Last week’s Shared Island Initiative investment in Derry is groundbreaking, says CONAL McFEELY of the Derry University Group. Others must now meet their responsibilities.

Last week’s investment and intervention by the Irish government, via the Shared Island Initiative, is groundbreaking. Many of us who have been campaigning for Derry and the North West to have its own independent university regard it as the most important development in sixty years.

We commend the Irish government’s commitment to Magee and to the Royal Irish Academy blueprint which envisages a full cross-border university in Derry and Donegal.

The support of the Shared Island Initiative is integral to developing our goal of a properly-resourced cross-border university, which will see our student population grow fully - far past the 10000 mark - to match other cities on our Atlantic coast.

It is worth reminding all stakeholders that the target of 10000 full-time students at Magee by 2030 was agreed by both governments in 2020 in an international contract and must be met.

There can be no revising targets downwards. Resources - and delivery vehicles, in the form of new structures - must be made available. To achieve this, we now need to fully remove all the political and economic roadblocks impeding the North West’s recovery and regeneration.

Dublin’s decisive intervention serves to highlight the history of underinvestment by Stormont in Derry and the wider North West - and its failure to correct the economic, social and educational imbalance that exists in the North. It also highlights the failure of governance, oversight and scrutiny here by our so-called political elite, who have allowed a two-tiered society in the North to flourish and become institutionalised on their watch.

We, as a watchdog campaign group active since 2013, reiterate our urgent call for a new oversight and scrutiny commission, to include the Shared Island Initiative and the Royal Irish Academy (RIA), as recommended in the recent RIA report.

Ulster University must be accountable for - and judged on - what they do, not what they promise. There will be time enough for credit when the 10000 figure is delivered on time.

The acid test for the current UU administration will be its ability to adapt to the new oversight measures and federal structures necessary to ensure Magee is administered independently from within the North West region.

The immediate return of courses and departments, such as Psychology, History, Sociology, Modern Languages and, crucially, Incore, to Magee will be a demonstration of UU’s sincerity and seriousness.

The City Deal funding, when applied, will also need a new level of oversight. Effectively, this will make Derry/Strabane Council and the Irish government as the two main stakeholders in Magee, and this must be recognised at corporate management level.

Very judiciously, the RIA states that the cross-border North West University must be able to operate independently of the capitals, so all-island structures will be required to assure this. A new North-South body will be required to take a lead on this and future development work in this area.

The British government must also step up now and meet its obligations under both New Decade New Demand and its recent Command Paper recommending a new cross-border university. It must match the Irish government’s commitment, and provide affirmative investment to ensure genuine ‘levelling up’ outside of the city-state of Belfast.

As we have declared, both London and Dublin will benefit from the cross-border nature of the new university. In many respects, it is the best possible mitigation for the challenges posed by Brexit. It also will be eligible for support from the EU, which has long been a guarantor of the Good Friday Agreement, and will have a practical opportunity to institutionalise that support.

To sum up, the South’s investment in Derry is groundbreaking. Three things remain essential to progress:

• A commitment to investment, such as shown by the Irish government - and lots more of it
• Scrutiny - to ensure that the North West’s growing university sector remains protected, and
• Independence for the North West university.

This triple lock of money, oversight and independence is essential, and we are confident that both the Dublin government and the Royal Irish Academy share this view.

It is welcome, after sixty years, to see historical injustice finally being addressed. But, as we have learned from hard experience, we must all be careful not to take our eyes off the ball.