Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The criteria originally announced were that there were various stages that had to be gone through. One of the stages is the merger of the relevant institutes of technology. The stage beyond that is attaining the status of a technological university. It was always very clear in the criteria that the mergers would happen prior to attaining the status of a technological university. As people will have a very good idea of how they are progressing, I do not think that should be a deterrent to the progress of the institutions that want to become technological universities and are progressing well.