Professor Diarmuid Hegarty:

I might give a different perspective on the borrowing question. A borrower can be thought of as a risk-taker and an investor in an institution. I had the privilege of serving for ten years on the Higher Education and Training Awards Council. In the course of those ten years, I got to know very well most of the heads of the institutes of technology. I formed the view that this was a group of very competent people and I would have had no hesitation investing in them. The Government probably needs to have faith in the quality of the people leading the State's universities and technological universities, given what they have achieved with limited resources over a number of years. That is just a comment from my personal perspective.