Professor Brian MacCraith:

I will give a brief answer and let my colleagues add to it. There are three things happening in this space already. Uversity has been set up. It is a common platform looking at education in the arts, particularly the performing arts, and creativity. It is a collective to which all universities, North and South, have signed up, as well as almost all of the institutes of technology and a number of other colleges. That concept is there already and people have bought into it. Brand Ireland is the thing.

Second, the Deputy might have seen a report in the newspapers, which was not described or reported very accurately, that Tata Consultancy Services, one of the world's global companies, visited us last week and talked to the universities and other colleges about this concept. It is not fully defined yet, but there might well be a market there. That is in play.

Third, Lord David Puttnam has said to us a number of times that one could use almost a taster set of modules for Irish universities and colleges in the international space, so that when a student in China, India, Indonesia or Malaysia is making a decision perhaps the first year could be an engagement online. We would get a sense of the student and the student gets a sense of Ireland. That could be an important dimension, which is a type of hybrid approach to this. A number of us are exploring that option at present.