Professor Maggie Cusack:

I thank the Deputy for sharing his reflections on the entire continuum. I want to pick up on his point at the end about further and higher education. I am sure everyone here has really great examples and it is probably best answered by example. The technological universities collaborate really well with one another, with the traditional universities and with the ETBs. As one example, MTU recently signed a memorandum of understanding, MOU, with UCC and with Cork ETB. That MOU is about skills provision for offshore renewables given the climate challenges and everything we are facing into. One of our campuses is the National Maritime College of Ireland. We really recognise that no one organisation can provide all of the skills that will be required in the whole skills pipeline as we transition to offshore renewable energy.

We recognise the synergistic effects that can be realised when we all collaborate together and bring different aspects of education. It is something of which we can all be proud. We were focused on the student accommodation, which is probably why those points did not come through in our statements but that is something we all do lots of.