Mr. Tom Molloy:

It sounds immodest to say this but Trinity College is Ireland's largest research institution. We are 19th in Europe in terms of drawing down funding from the European Research Council. We see it slightly differently to Professor Ferguson. We believe that there is a real danger here. Our biggest collaborator is Cambridge University while our second biggest is Queen's University, Belfast. It is not always appreciated that less than 40% of our income now comes from the State. The remaining 60% comes from fees, research and from one or two other sources, including philanthropy. Even philanthropy is in danger from Brexit but more importantly, research is endangered by it. We are struggling to see a huge amount of upside from this. We worry that Britain might be ejected, in some kind of hard Brexit, from all of the research collaborations that go on. We also worry about the future of funding from organisations like the Wellcome Trust, which has been a great friend of Ireland for the last century. It is not clear, in a post-Brexit world, whether organisations like the Wellcome Trust will be as generous as they have been in the past.

I can only say that we have had a good bounce recently. Today it was announced that we have risen in the university rankings. At the same time, we have seen two thirds of British universities fall in the rankings that were announced this morning precisely because it would seem that people are getting worried. The only logical explanation is that people are worried that there will be a squeeze on research. If there is a squeeze on research in the UK, we will feel it too, at least temporarily, as is always the case if there is a squeeze on one's biggest partner in anything. In that sense, I am inclined to agree with Senator Daly.