The higher education quality assurance system helps to ensure that education, research, qualifications and related services are of a quality that is acceptable nationally and internationally and supports confidence in the integrity of the qualifications system.The quality assurance system in Ireland emerges from the
actions and interactions of agents such as higher education institutions, their representative bodies, the Union of Students in Ireland, Professional, Statutory or Regulatory Bodies (PSRBs), state agencies and the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science. Each higher education institution has its own institutional quality assurance system that is embedded within the national system and determines the quality of education, research and related services that it is willing and able to maintain subject to national norms. In this paper we reflect on how this quality and qualifications system responded to the Covid-19 crisis, what can be learned from that, and how it may assist us in the future.