Mr. Robert Watt:

When it comes to research funding in the health area, we have a body, the HRB, which runs and administers the competitions so we had set out that this was the vehicle through which we would do it. The intention would have been to discuss with the HRB how it would do that. We would have planned to have had conversations between the time the letter of intent was sent and when we finalised the agreement because we would have had to make arrangements with the HRB at that stage. The intention would have been to have a conversation with the HRB.

It is of note - and this has not featured in any of the commentary since then - that in the Estimates for 2023 the HRB had an increase in its allocation of €2 million for pandemic preparedness. I understand that the HRB is in the process of engaging with the university sector on projects to utilise that platform.