Professor Willie Donnelly:

As technological universities are a new sector in Irish education, it is important that the voices of the recipients are heard in the make-up of the board as well. If they are not there and are not heard, it would be very easy to ignore the needs of that sector to the detriment of society. The problem is that you cannot have every discipline on the board because it would become too weighty but you can have people who have an appreciation and understanding of the various disciplines. In terms of what we call the traditional universities, the new universities need a presence on the board to give a perspective.