Professor Vincent Cunnane:

The apprenticeship will continue to be a core part of what we do. The committee may rest assured on that.

If I could say a last couple of words, I thank everybody for their involvement. As Dr. Ryan said, there are a number of issues on which we will follow up. This sector that has transformed not just Irish education but Ireland. It has been in existence for more than 50 years, having started as regional training centres, RTCs, before becoming institutes of technology and now technological universities. We have responded to the needs of Ireland and shaped the type of Ireland we have today. We are still doing that through our access and other issues. We have remnants of the RTCs still in operation and as we move forward, those remnants must be eradicated if we are to realise the full ambition.

On finance, we must ensure we have money for research and a borrowing capacity. There are contract issues that need to be resolved but we also have no academic promotion within our sector. These issues are related and hugely important. This whole session is about the future of the TUs and how we realise our ambition for them. There are limitations on us, which were imposed by historical issues that were never fully addressed. Until those issues are addressed, our ambition and the committee's ambition for the technological sector experiment will not be realised. Let us ensure it turns out to be a highly successful one. We are all behind it and thank the committee for its time and effort in this space.