Mr. Sean Ó Foghlú:

No it has not. Waterford has suspended its engagement with the process. As far as I am aware that is its principal announcement in that regard. The technological university concept is Government policy, as is the process whereby criteria have to be met. There is a distance that has to be kept between the agents of Government in ensuring a fair and appropriate process is undertaken and the institutions which voluntarily put together applications, with a political background but voluntarily. It is their role to do that and they advance it in a combined way.

As Mr. Boland said, we were hearing on the grapevine that there were difficulties and there was a process put in place to bring them together. They moved away from having an external facilitator and the two institutes decided to work together without one but right down to two or three weeks prior to the announcement of the suspension by Waterford Institute of Technology the two presidents assured the Minister, and I was at the meeting, that the process was advancing.