Dr. Niall Kennedy:

On the future-proofing issue, from the point of view of precarious workers I would like to see some real thought put into career paths for people who are on temporary contracts. In other words, what is their route out of precarity. Let us not have people sit for a decade or more and there are so many examples of that in this halfway house.

On the issue of women, I reiterate that according to our published research up to two thirds of precarious academics are women. So this situation always weighs far more heavily on women and on ethnic minorities. In my view, any institution or Government that relies heavily on precarious employment cannot say that they support gender or racial equality because those are just empty words if one's actions say a different thing.