Dr. Joseph Ryan:

I thank Deputy Pádraig O'Sullivan for his question about international students. Much good work is going on to try to hold onto that market but the truth is that the pandemic has had a huge impact. We will not know the measure of that impact until we see how these particular pieces work. We know that competitor Anglophone countries are working ahead of us. The message from Ireland is that we have managed this pandemic very carefully and cautiously. We are open within the country but there is sometimes an inconsistency between that openness within the country and the barriers to getting students into the country. To give a practical example, vaccinations that are given in other countries but that are not recognised by the European Medicines Agency are not recognised here either. That is difficult for intending students to understand. We are still tying to work through some of those final pieces.