Mr. Bobby O'Connor:

I was not involved myself but I understand they were not. They were not aware of it or consulted because the university took the position that it did not need to consult them. The university remains of the view that it was not a severance payment in the context; it was pay in lieu of notice. There are precedents for that. The current Minister for Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science, when he was Minister for Health, had a very similar situation concerning the outgoing head of the HSE and would have acknowledged in the Dáil that pay in lieu of notice is a correct-----