Marc MacSharry (Sligo-Leitrim, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Chairman. While he is absolutely correct, we have parliamentary privilege, which sometimes must be used in the interests of the public. It seems to me that we were lied to and misled that day. As Mr. Flaherty rightly said, the matter was the subject of a protected disclosure. I am conscious the interim president has acknowledged with candour the difficulties we have had in the past and the lack of harmony in our relationship and that she and her colleagues are committed to improving that. I will return to that later.

The issue related to a position I had asked about at the time, namely, the director of strategic projects. I was told this was a new position and someone had sought to correct the record. They told us this in correspondence that came to the committee and was demoted by the committee, but it also came to me personally. The correspondence clearly stated, and this has emerged since, that that role already existed and the person doing it was doing a very good job, such that the Higher Education Authority had acknowledged how successful the person was, going back to a report in 2017. Is the university's position today different from that?