Mr. John McGrane:

I thank the Senator for his remarks. By way of introduction, I would say that my colleague, Mr. Paul Lynam, our director of policy, has been central and has been doing extraordinary work on behalf of our members. As an organisation, we represent all of the universities on the island of Ireland, bar one, and a growing number and a significant percentage of the major universities on the island of Great Britain. We are honoured to be among the small number of people invited by the Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, Deputy Simon Harris, to be a standing member on his new forum on the furtherance of higher education and further education research. We are enormously committed in this space. I will take the Senator's second question but I will defer to my colleague, Mr. Paul Lynam, to take some of the detail on the first question.