Professor Vincent Cunnane:

The action plan for education says very little about third level, and there are only one or two instances where the institutes of technology are mentioned. In the Action Plan for Jobs, the institutes of technology are mentioned on almost every page. This is because there is a regional dimension to it and we deliver across social and economic divides and are integrated and engaged. With regard to the Chairman's point that the €5 million seems very low, Letterkenny Institute of Technology deals with SMEs in the main. We have many strong links with foreign direct investment but we deal with SMEs essentially and they have also suffered in the downturn. The fact we are able to extract €5 million from a very small SME sector in regional locations is very good, as opposed to being very poor.