Professor Declan McGonagle:

Some actions were taken by the board from 2012 onwards. As I said in the briefing document and in the opening statement, we accept that we were not compliant in the period. There are reasons which I have just touched upon for that process: the scale and capacity of the college to address all of the issues we were presented with in the particular period from 2009 onwards - I cannot speak back to 2004 - when there was a set of fundamental issues which had to do with the continued existence of the college and its ability to deliver student learning on the scale that was required. For us the focus was on delivery. We accept that resulted in not sufficient attention being paid to the other issues that the Deputy has identified.