While higher education did not feature prominently in the public consciousness during the first four decades of political independence, the following twenty years witnes~ed a remarkable degree of analysis and appraisal ~nd a level of action on a range of fronts which transformed the p-rovision and profile of higher education in Irish society. By 1960 the Government accepted that the whole question of third-level education needed to be examined and that third-level education would be a crucial element in the planned socio-economic development of the sta~e. With thi~ end in view the Minister for Education, Dr. Hillery, appomted a twenty-eight person commission on Higher Education. It held its inaugural meeting on the 8th November, 1960.