stitch up part two

The UCD+TCD saga continues with a report in today's Irish Times discussing the reaction to the news and hinting at possible delays in any merger. However, given that the head of Trinity is on the review team looking at the future of Irish HE, there are surely some serious questions regarding conflict of interest and inequity in the whole approach.

Further, I wonder, seriously whether the other institutions would be bold enough to demand minutes of any meetings that have taken place with government departments, UCD and TCD under the FOI and indeed challenge the eligibility of these two institutions to even bid for PRTLI funding in the current round given that the process has surely been compromised. No normal competitive tendering/bidding type process would tolerate separate meetings with prefered bidders.