Professor Gerry Boyle:

The Chairman has raised an interesting point. We are very used to the terminology. Knowledge transfer activity in Teagasc embraces two divisions. Our advisory activity, whereby we have offices throughout the country, is one branch.

We have a dedicated head of that activity. We also have 284 front-line advisers in the field who are backed up by an administrative support team and so on. The other branch covers our educational activity. It comprises the four Teagasc colleges and all of their teachers, technicians and farmer staff. In recent years we have taken on some contract lecturers because of the big growth in demand for part-time courses. We generate income on both sides. Advisory fee income in the accounts last year was €11.8 million. The figure for educational activity was about €5 million or €6 million.