Professor Jim Livesey:

Even your language, a Chathaoirligh, suggested that researchers would be in the agency; they will not be in the agency, they will be funded by the agency in research-performing organisations, RPOs. We have completely muddled our heads with it. It needs to be simple: it funds people and it funds projects. Let us make it simple. That simplicity allows the RPOs to be radical so that we are not caught in silos and not thinking: "Oh God, I have to keep that going because of that one condition on the SFI grant that I need to meet." A bonfire of the KPIs would allow us to be radical.

We will know the agency has been successful when the universities are creating the platforms that genuinely address really important questions. It is really simple.