Professor Willie Donnelly:

I am on the record as saying the major challenge for the south east is the university for the south east. I have worked on this for 22 years. As people now know, we started a facilitation process involving ourselves and those concerned in Carlow. That has gone very well and we have a very good relationship with the president in Carlow. We are now at a stage where we can review the next phase in the development, which will be the engagement of the two governing bodies and, following that, the engagement of the executive. I am confident that the process is where it should be at this stage and that we should move forward in the right direction.