Ms Aingeal O?Donoghue:

There has been a high volume of applications. It is in the hundreds but I do not have a breakdown between the strands. Once we set up the programme, the running of it and the assessment of the proposals is done by the HEA with expert panels. I am not sure if they would share the information with us until the closing date, but I can check. I know from our engagement with universities and higher education institutions that we are talking about hundreds. It is a very energised sector and we see from talking to the institutions that there was untapped potential there, which researchers and academics probably realised but they had nowhere to go. I will see if we can get the information but I know overall the applications are in the hundreds.