Dr. Alan Wall:

Yes, they are. In my correspondence to the committee I more or less indicate that we were not asking the right questions or perhaps we thought we were asking one question but they were answering another because of a lack of a common definition. During our meeting with the Irish Universities Association and the Technological Higher Education Association, we agreed to sit down and move through a number of definitions so as to get very specific answers to very specific questions, with a shared agreement on meaning. To answer the Deputy's question, I have no sense there was any kind of resistance to this. It is more a language thing and we must ensure we get the questions right.

We want to know about the number of registered students related to occasional hours. We do not want to see overtime and consultants or procured services as occasional hours. We want to know what are occasional hours. It was a matter for us to clarify what we meant. The committee helped us to clarify our thinking because we were going to respond in a certain way but we stopped because it did not shed light on the matter. It is an issue for us and the questions we were asking. We are not getting any sense from those institutions that they are resisting.