Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I probably will not be able to deal with all of them, but the committee can revert to me.

On the question of targets, the Commission allows member states to set their targets in line with conditions. I know there is an aspirational target set for 2020 and ideally we would like to be hitting it, but current conditions do not allow us to do that. Small countries have to be smart and specialise in very specific areas of opportunity. I think that is what we are doing. We have identified 14 core areas, and food is identified as a national priority. Already one of the new SFI centres is very much mapped on to the potential for food. The Alimentary Pharmabiotic Centre, APC, is a research company led by Professor Fergus Shanahan and his team of researchers in UCC with investment in the region of €40 million. They are exploring the next wave of opportunity in the area of food, probiotics and functional foods. They are currently mapping the human digestive tract at microbial level with a view to distinguishing between the good and bad bacteria and creating medicinal products that will be vital to sustain humanity. Their work has a global focus. The researchers from Teagasc, the dairy and pharma industries are mapped into the activity.

We are focused on the next wave of potential in areas such as food, pharma and medical devices. These are our inherent core strengths and will allow us to compete with industries in other countries, such as New Zealand. We are lagging behind Singapore in terms of the delivery of education, particularly in relation to STEM subjects, science, technology, engineering and mathematics. We have programmes such as the "Smart Futures" and "Discover". There is flexibility in the new junior cycle curriculum to introduce STEM related activities.

In my role in the Department of Education and Skills, I have responsibility for the policy of STEM. We have set up a STEM educational review group, comprising academia and industry partners - chaired by Professor Brian MacCraith - and operating at arms length which is doing a complete mapping exercise on all STEM activity throughout the country, whether it is industrial engagement, the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment, NCCA or the State agencies delivering education. If we can collate all of the activity, we can then create an impact through the primary and post-primary schools by inculcating an even greater sense of the potential of education in science, technology, engineering and mathematics in terms of the jobs that need to be created downstream.

I have a real personal interest in pedagogical research. The primary school teachers have to be given the skill sets and have the tools that allow them to have complete confidence to teach mathematics and science related subjects. Teachers at primary school level have to teach across a myriad of subjects. An idea emanating from the STEM committee is the need to spend more on research to assist teachers so that we can achieve higher scores on the PISA and other international ranking tests and to adopt the methodologies that are inherent in places such as Singapore, Finland and Estonia. That will allow us to create economic opportunities down stream and enable us to compete with other centres. That is the philosophy that is guiding us. The review group will report to me very soon.

I will now respond to the questions on the regions. Senator Cullinane mentioned TSSG, Telecommunications Software & System Group. One only has to look at how many successful applications that have come from TSSG, a company formed as part of the Waterford Institute of Technology, in the south east, to see how well they have done on FP7. They have done very well because there are excellent people in TSSG. What must drive research and development is excellence and not regional considerations.