Ms Josephine Feehily:

I completely endorse everything that has been said about mental health and well-being. We need a mix of a permanent structure and the capacity to buy in exceptional services because we cannot provide every kind of service. That is the model that should be striven for. Mr. Deenihan spoke about striving. That is where we are all the time with this because the pressures change.

I will be really interested to see how the HEA plans to operationalise the North-South element. It is one thing, as I know, to have something in law; it is quite another to actually make it happen. One of the pieces Tús has been really active on is an organisation called the Regional University Network - European University, RUN-EU. Two students start their degrees with Tús and finish them somewhere else and vice versa, or they go for a middle year or part of a programme. There is experience there as to how trans-regional programmes involving the European Union, well supported by EU funding, operate. There is some really good material that would help operationalise the North-South element. In addition to the fees and so on, there is probably a need for courses that provide mutual recognition of qualifications. They should also allow students to do modules here and modules there and to earn microcredentials while prior learning is recognised.

All of those pieces are needed and there are trans-European models that could be copied where Tús has a huge amount of really interesting experience in the last few years.