Dr. Noel O'Connor:

Chairman, may I briefly clarify one issue on that procurement? A substantial sum, just slightly under €1 million of that €5.1 million, related to the Science without Borders programme. That was a bilateral agreement between Ireland and Brazil. We bid as a country for scholarships in respect of that programme. DIT was very fortunate in that we obtained the largest number, approximately 250 students, but tied to that was the fact that we had to provide accommodation and English language tuition for those students. It was part of the package. At a very late stage in the year we found we had a large contingent of Brazilian students coming to DIT and we had to respond. In doing so we could not go to public tender in the normal way of public procurement but we sought expressions of interest from providers and covered ourselves for that year. In subsequent years we went through the process of public procurement.