Dr. Tony Holohan:

It would be two schools within Trinity. It would have been a joint appointment between two schools, as Trinity makes clear. That was the structure proposed within Trinity.

To elaborate on what Mr. Watt has said, the shared intention of everybody was that this would be a collaboration between all the universities. I made that clear to the committee when we met in private session. Ultimately, an individual based in one location would still have the obligation to lead something that was about all the institutions together. To put it in simple terms, it was about ensuring that we as a country could bring together the relevant experts. There are university departments of public health and there are experts in it, like Professor Cecily Kelleher or Professor Ivan Perry down in Cork. We would bring all these people together in one collaboration and, to use a simple term, put on the Irish jersey. An enormous amount of funding is now potentially available at a European level through the newly-established Health Emergency Preparedness and Response Authority to massively increase Europe's clout in dealing with these issues. These are huge opportunities for us as a country to position ourselves to work together collaboratively and go after some of this funding. That was the broad objective for all the universities working together.

It was not just about Trinity. It was to be about all the universities.