Professor Willie Donnelly:

The Deputy has been disingenuous in a way. Not only was I vice president of research, I was also the leading academic researcher in the institute. I had developed a research group of 120 people. I have generated €80 million in investment through research for the region. If one takes that €80 million and the commonly held view that it generates 4.25 in an impact, one notes that is about €0.25 billion into the local economy. I set up a private company based on my own research that I carried out. If I, as a vice president of research, were asked by the Deputy whether I was taking advantage of my position, I would say to him – I can see the line he is taking – that if I, as a vice president of research, had gone into Mr. McLoughlin's group, PMBRC, took some of his intellectual property and commercialised it, that would have been wrong. I commercialised my own intellectual property. The conflict of interest was recognised by the institute, which is the reason Tony McFeely was in the negotiation and the reason the people in the research office, including the external services officer and the tech transfer office, had no communication with me at any stage on that. I was the lead academic in the institute. According to the policy, I, as an academic, am entitled to commercialise my intellectual property.