Dr. Joseph Ryan:

I agree with Mr. Miley. Our understanding is that the fund stands at approximately €1 billion, which is what I said in my opening statement. It should definitely be used for core funding. One of the questions we have asked continuously is on the governance of this. I do not mean this in a bad sense. If employers see this as a tax, they want to see a return in terms of skills. How they feed into skills priorities goes to the Deputy's question. In this regard, the north west might be somewhat different from the east coast.

I could not agree more with the Deputy on positive discrimination. I have to acknowledge the work done on the Technological University Research Network report. It invested money to try to get these nascent technological universities up and running. It has been very helpful. We have been speaking about continuing this. I mentioned the work done on the national recovery and resilience plan. The Deputy is well aware of the work done through the Royal Irish Academy's higher education futures group. This had a particular focus on the north west and cross-Border education. I mention this because there is probably a question as to how we inform public policy on detailed questions such as this. Very good work is being done on this. The Deputy has done her own work on it as we well know.

That sort of work will be critical to this.