Professor Malachy Ó Néill:

I will build on Mr. Hannigan's comments, particularly in terms of Brexit. I authored a piece on educationmatters.iein recent weeks titled "Bridging Brexit". I sought to look at the opportunities that might present themselves in a post-Brexit scenario. There is a saying in Irish, "múineann gá seift", which is essentially, "necessity is the mother of invention". The reality is that we have put in place a strong alliance and a positive partnership that might be looked upon as an antidote to some of the challenges around Brexit. That shared approach and strategy and working collaboratively puts us in a good place in the north west to develop that.

One of the practical challenges that sometimes goes unnoticed is across the island we facilitate a different system of transition from post-primary to tertiary education. For example, the UK UCAS system, which is the most common route into Ulster University, does not facilitate applications to Dublin, Galway or Letterkenny educational institutions.

In the same way, the CAO system, which is the most commonly used mechanism to make the transition to college in the southern system, does not facilitate courses at Ulster university or Queen's University Belfast, for example. It is strange that a student in Buncrana is unable to apply for a course at Ulster university's Magee campus, some three, four or five miles down the road, through the system most commonly used in her school. Perhaps, therefore, there is an opportunity to explore a new approach. If courses in Ulster university, particularly Magee campus, could be offered through the CAO system, it could be an additional way of expediting the transition to third level and retaining talent in the north-west region.