Professor Gerry McKenna:

I welcome those comments. I do not think there is a massive divergence in objectives, North and South, in terms of governance and what is intended, be it in higher education or policy issues generally in agriculture, climate change or whatever. There is probably a lack of co-ordination and discussion. We have to try to find ways of removing what I would call silly barriers to co-operation where people naturally end up in silos. This should change. I welcome hugely Deputy Conway-Walsh’s suggestion about writing to CORU, for example, to remove what I am sure was an unintended consequence regarding regulation. It certainly was not intended by the Government here to prohibit people from studying in Northern Ireland and moving back and students from the North going South and so on. There is a real opportunity to start co-ordinating things, say that we are trying to do the same things and should not have these barriers in place, and remove them systematically and carefully.