Áine Collins (Cork North West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State and I thank him for the positive initiatives in the innovation and science space. That is the future and we must keep investing in it and commercialising it. The area needs continual work and the Minister of State obviously agrees with this.

One point involved how we can enhance the SME sector's engagement with science and technology. On a regular basis, I see people with ideas coming into our offices. They may not have third level education and the idea may not involve an ICT or pharma product but an engineering product. They do not know how to get to the next stage. Sometimes it is about money but much of the time it is about advice. Mentoring, which I talk about on a regular basis, can help the SME sector's engagement with research. If everyone is being innovative about that and using the technology framework, it could involve reaching many different target audiences. There is an easy solution.

We have talked about Singapore. Israel has done well for many years in research, innovation and commercialisation. It has done this through a programme in which it raises money through philanthropy and from the diaspora and reinvests in innovation. On a recent trip to America, I met the Cork man who runs Maryland University, which has a budget of €500 million for research and innovation. Of that, some €84 million is for commercialising research. At the first stage, one gets €50,000 for the business plan to take it to the next stage, and then one gets €100,000 at the next stage. Matching funds are not required. As a result of that, we see a major amount of new innovation coming from the east coast of America.

It is very important to talk about innovation, but the elephant in the room is money. We need huge money if we are serious about innovation. There is funding coming through from Europe but it is very slow to get into the mainline. How do companies get access to it if they are not part of Enterprise Ireland or local enterprise offices?