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Madam, – Dr John Walsh (March 3rd) does well to warn of the dangers of the new breed of temporary contracts which are becoming ever more prevalent in Irish universities and research centres. I have been a researcher in Italy since 2002 and was very fortunate to have had to wait “only” seven years before obtaining a permanent position, whereas many colleagues might have 10 or 15 years (or even more in some cases) of successive short-term contracts under their belt before obtaining permanency.