David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Forgive my ignorance here, but I understand the technological university process as I pay close attention to it, having regard to what is happening in the south east. My understanding of this is that the merger process was in place without being underpinned by legislation. The legislation was on hold for a long time; it was pretty much suspended because there were political differences. There is now a change in the sequencing where initially the institutes had to formally merge and then had to reach and meet criteria. There were benchmarks around having a set number of graduates and so on. Then there was an international panel of experts who would come in and adjudicate on the application and so on. My understanding is that the legislation is going to change to allow the merger part of it to come in at the end of the process. Much of the legal and consultancy advice was around some of that process. It is glaringly obvious and jumps out from the page that if the process involved the proposed mergers is the same, how can it be logical for those engaged in the proposed Munster merger to have spent more than €570,000 and for those involved in the other proposed mergers who are engaged in exactly the same process to have spent-----