Professor Edgar Morgenroth:

That is the famous sentence these days. On the unification issue and the graduate transfer, I guess if one wanted to properly look at this, one would need to do a much more detailed analysis. We were just looking at relatively hypothetical examples that are instructive in some ways but certainly not realistic.

On the regional conversion issue, we know that peripheral regions more generally in the EU have struggled and Northern Ireland would be within that mix as well as other parts of Ireland. There have been some movements. We often assume the west is the poorest but it is nowhere near the poorest region. Within the west, there are aspects that are much more like Dublin than, for example, most of the midlands. There have been shifts and shifts are possible. They require substantial policy interventions and also sometimes a bit of good luck. In the case of the west, basically focused on Galway and the quality of life aspects of Galway, they have managed to build clusters around pharmaceuticals and medical devices that are doing extremely well. There are ways of turning around some of these lagging regions but, as Mr. Finucane said, there are more structural issues in regions such as Northern Ireland that are very similar in other parts.