David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Professor Donnelly and the institute for accepting the recommendations in the report. I will not deal with this in detail but there was a great deal of public commentary about issues that were raised in this committee, which was unhelpful. Professor Donnelly might have a view on that. We focused on two areas: management of conflicts of interest and protecting the institute. In fact, we are examining these across a number of institutions. Our role is to ensure that happens. Nobody is disputing the fact that Waterford IT is one of the leading drivers of cutting edge research and development. A substantial amount of positive work was done, but that does not mean that we cannot examine these issues. We have done that, and I believe we have done it fairly. We ask questions without fear or favour. That is our job. There are a couple of other issues I will raise later, but I thank the witnesses.