Dr. Alex Dowdall:

Gabhaim buíochas as an gceist. Mar an gcéanna le Jean O'Mahony, táim chun freagairt as Béarla má tá sé sin ceart go leor. When we talk about targets, particularly for the university sector, it is important to understand broader Government policy, the broader policy landscape and the fact that there are a number of different policy interventions already in train or emerging at a cross-government level.

Obviously, the public sector workforce targets are an important thing to keep in mind. Our colleagues in the Department of Education and Youth have forthcoming policies on the teaching of Irish in English-medium schools and Irish-language education outside of the Gaeltacht. We are collaborating on a cross-government basis with our colleagues on all of those policies. It is important to understand that they will all have implications for the third level sector. It is important to understand things in the round when we are talking about targets. While targets are great, we need to understand what their purpose and objectives are.