Mr. Fergal O'Brien:

Our main observation on this is the opportunity again of the economies of scale. If there is a business case and an economy of scale on the island of Ireland that would seem to us like a very logical route to proceed, so we would definitely see the benefit of that. Again, we see it in the context of business engagement with the education sector and from both a recruitment and research perspective, they want to engage with centres of excellence and business will not take any kind of recognition of whether it is in Northern Ireland or in Ireland as it want to go where the excellence for its particular area.

They see considerable merit, however, in terms of working on the island for obvious reasons. Although the population number is growing, with an all-island population of 7 million, it is a relatively small island and where we can have shared centres of excellence across the island. Whether it is in the context of education or research, that makes a lot of sense from a business perspective.