Dr. Hugh Brady:

Not between 1999 and 2006. The Act introduced a different mechanism - a requirement to seek approval by the Minister. The problem was that no mechanism to seek approval was put in place at the time. For that reason, from 1999 the university provided the HEA on an annual basis details of all such allowances and regularly requested approval.

There was a series of correspondence over that period, usually either apologising for the delay or seeking additional information from us. It was not until almost seven years later that there was any indication the HEA had a problem with this. Then there was one particular letter which essentially said that the HEA thought these higher responsibility allowances should be approached in the context of section 25 of the Act. That was the first indication and we began a series of discussions and engagement, both written and oral, with the HEA. Obviously, we made the point that these posts were the norm in international higher education. The basic problem is that one has salary scales up to and including professor and one has set salary scales at, for example, the president's level, but what one does not have is set salary scales for heads of departments and schools, deans and college principals. That could have been dealt with in two ways. In many universities across the world, it is dealt with by simply recognising that it is a different job and carries a different salary. We took the approach that it is better for this to be an allowance because those individuals will then move back into their regular academic job after the completion of their post as, for example, dean, and will not have a long-term pension liability. Rather than have a separate scale, the university's approach was to have an allowance and recognise the different nature and the added responsibility of that job but then the individual-----