Mr. Paul Hannigan:

I referred to that earlier with regard to meeting one of the clients that is moving into Donegal. It is quite clear that the educational profile of the region is really important from the client's perspective. The possibility of retaining people in the region is really important as well in terms of giving people a first start and then offering them opportunities to develop within those companies. The Connacht-Ulster alliance, CUA, consisting of ourselves in Letterkenny Institute of Technology, Institute of Technology Sligo and GMIT will make an application for TU status imminently. We believe the growth and strength of the larger organisation will allow us to put even more support behind attracting foreign direct investment to the region. We have a very strong track record as institutes of technology in terms of our engagement with the companies. The example I gave earlier was interesting in that we have had no new foreign direct investment client in Donegal for about 20 years but the companies that came in 20 years ago have grown from very small companies that might have employed 100 to 200 people to having over 4,000 people employed in that area. To me, that is a really strong indicator of the transformative impact of education and the possibility of retaining people in the regions.

The TUs will bring regions closer together. I know we have always been very competitive with one another throughout the country in terms of the individual institutions competing for students and resources. As we come together as the bigger technological universities, hopefully, that will dissipate and we will come together stronger as regions to get more resources into the regions. There is no doubt that we will retain more people from our own regions. If we look at the current make up of the population of any of our universities or institutes of technology, we can see that it is becoming increasingly a local product in terms of the retention of students within the regions. This will be even more pronounced once the technological universities are developed. That will be a really strong sign point for any of the regions regardless of which technological university it is.