Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I would like to add a few comments to what the Minister said. I thank the committee for having me here again; the year goes by very fast. In working with the Minister, Deputy Bruton, on the area of research and development, it is important to look at the rationale behind that. It is important we realise it is about future-proofing the economy. We have had great success through research and development and building up a research system over the past ten to 15 years with cross-party support and the support of different Governments. That is paying off, but we must now build on that investment and drive forward our competitive knowledge-based economy and society based on that and on our investment in research and development through the new science strategy, which I will discuss later. The new science strategy will be published this year but it is a question of trying to focus on that investment and demand to ensure we are getting it right.

The Minister spoke about talent. The whole idea of investing in research and development innovation is to develop that talent base, which is the human capital we need. Every company we talk to tells us they chose Ireland based on the talent we can provide and the skills agenda, which is an issue we may discuss at a different committee. A key point is that we will continue that investment in research and development. We have achieved a good deal in the past year. We will deal with some of the statistics under programme B, but all our agencies are performing well. I accept that the budgets have been smaller than they were ten years ago, but that was the position in which we found ourselves. We have stretched those agencies as far as we can, and they have pushed forward to achieve a good deal, working well as a team. Science Foundation Ireland is very much team orientated, working along with the Higher Education Authority and also Enterprise Ireland in trying to drive this forward.

We are developing that area well. It is about increasing the productivity and competitiveness across the board, both economically and through health, social and environmental outcomes.

It is crucial to maintaining high value jobs and creating new jobs. In the past decade and a half we have built up a very strong science base which has yielded results in terms of the economic impact - we can see that in jobs recovery and so on - but also in the rankings. Just to quote a few figures, in the European innovation scoreboard we have moved from tenth place in 2013 to eighth place in 2015, and we are currently in the group of strong innovators, which is where we need to be as a country. In the 2015 global index, Ireland has climbed three places to be ranked eighth in the world and sixth in Europe. We want to push even higher, to be among the top five innovators, if we possibly can. That is what we are trying to do. We are still ranked first in the world for availability of skilled labour. Anyone who has been on a trade mission will have been told that the main reason companies are coming here is the availability of skilled labour. We cannot take that for granted; we must continue to build on it. That talent and drive for talent will be a strong part of our science strategy. We are ranked first in the world for added value as a destination for foreign direct investment and 13th for university and industry collaboration, research and development. I believe we can be in the top ten in that index. That is something we have to achieve. We have to become known as the best country for enterprise to engage with universities and the education system. That is an issue that Deputy Michael Conaghan has mentioned a great deal in the past. He did it quite well in Ballyfermot. We have to make sure that all levels of education are engaging and responding to the needs of enterprise at all levels. We can achieve that. It is nice to have those statistics, but we want to boost them even further.

There are a couple of key highlights for 2015 in this area. Enterprise Ireland has 56 high-potential start-ups, and we are on track to achieve more over the year. We have more than 400 Enterprise Ireland innovation voucher projects - our target was 500. That we had 400 at the end of July means we are well on track, and we will push the project even further. We have 40 Enterprise Ireland innovation partnership projects in industry and academia. They are important in driving collaboration and involvement with industry among our research community. By the end of 2015 I expect that 350 companies will be actively engaged in collaborative research with our technology centres, which are driven by Enterprise Ireland. There is great potential in this area. In 2015, eight high-tech spin-outs were established, 41 commercialisation projects were supported through the higher education institutes, and 50 commercially relevant technologies were transferred to industry. Again, we are pushing that out. Much of the work has been built up over the years in our higher education institutes and we are trying to turn it into jobs and exports.

Turning to Science Foundation Ireland, SFI, we are building on the 12 resource centres, and the spend in the past five or six years has been €350 million. Eight new applications were received this year, four of which have been approved. These will lead on to more collaborations, more jobs and more development of talent.

Funding at the research level is also important. In April we announced an extra €30 million investment over a five-year period for 23 important research projects involving more than 100 researchers and, critically, 40 companies. We are trying to increase the number of companies that are getting involved in our research ecosystem. What has been developed over successive Governments is well recognised. We want to push that involvement with companies. There is room also for smaller companies to get involved through the different methods we have established. The next part of that will be the science strategy, which we hope will be published in late October or early November and will deal with future-proofing the economy and setting out our investment plans, both private and public. The best way to sum up the science strategy is that it is like to putting out one's business case, one's plan, to win investment. The Government has set a high target to achieve - a spend of 2.5% of GDP by 2020 - and that is what we have to aim for on a continuous basis. Our competitors, such as Finland, Denmark and Israel, are doing this and we have to compete with them and match that. That means getting our spend back up in the next four to six years.

Deputy Michael Conaghan mentioned the Web Summit. The Minister has dealt with that issue. I made some comments on this on Sunday and may have been misunderstood. I am not glad to see it go, but I understand that it has to move on. It is a summit that wants to expand and grow and it has to move around internationally. I expect it will come back to Ireland at some stage and we have to make sure it does. The key issue is that it is an Irish start-up company that is going international. It is another example of where our place is in the world and how Irish companies can compete on the world stage, but summits, by their nature, have to move around and continue to be attractive and to get publicity. The key part is that the 130 jobs behind it are staying in Ireland and hopefully the number of jobs will increase. We need to build on that initiative and attract and win other summits but, more importantly, we need to design and improve our own. The start-up gathering is a prime example of what we are doing as a Government.

That is going to take off. This is the first week in October and the scheme is in five major cities. There are numerous projects in all of our counties that are associated with the start-up gathering. Such a gathering will grow in exactly same way as the Web Summit, and that must be our ambition. We need similar initiatives to make that happen. We must learn from the Web Summit, push on and introduce new events.