Dr. Edward Lahiff:

It is always a challenge initially. For example, a student from Tanzania had been accepted to undertake doctorate studies with us. He was interviewed and his competence was beyond question. His entire education from preschool had been through English. Yet, he was held up by the Irish embassy in Tanzania over a certificate to show he had competency in English. That is like asking you or me to produce a certificate showing we are competent in English. Those are the little headaches. Some students arrived last week from Ethiopia and they were confronted with the new €300 charge when applying for a Garda identification document. I do not know the technical term for the document. That charge was not there before and it was a bit of a shock. Those students are only staying in Ireland for a month. These are the glitches which can arise but I do not think they are any worse than in any other country.

On the question about networking, people in the development sector tend to be fairly switched on to wastage and opportunities and working across sectors. For example, our AGRIDIET project involves UCD and UCC. As Dr. Paul Conway said, Universities Ireland has been involved in bringing all the universities, North and South, into a common forum to discuss aid and particularly through the partnership with Irish Aid. Four years ago, along with other academics I was involved in setting up a branch of the Development Studies Association which is a North-South body including virtually every institution in the country. We have recently received support from Irish Aid to advance that work. We also have international linkages. We are not as disconnected as people might think. As part of the development agenda we are always looking to how things can be done better.