Professor Brian Norton:

The HEA has sought to meet student demand in particular areas where the authority deemed there was not adequate resources within the sector. This applies especially in computing, for example, with the National College of Ireland and Griffith College Dublin and in medicine with the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. All of these are private providers meeting national need. It has been deemed that the best way of doing it is to have these providers. They receive money for delivering the programmes that are required. This is deemed to be a co-operative arrangement to do that.

If there was a policy change that deemed this arrangement not to be appropriate, then, obviously, we would work within it. It is a rather successful programme, by the way. The development of this proposal as a way of meeting the need was discussed fully in the HEA and the models were put in place accordingly. They apply in other areas in other institutions.