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

The Deputy is absolutely right although I disagree, as I have made very clear, that there is a crisis. Over the past year, I have probably met many of those 900 people as I go out of my way to attend as many of these functions as I can and to meet those involved in the research community. They now recognise that we are very open to this conversation in both the Department of Education and Skills and the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation because we are confident about what we are doing. We are not shying away from this conversation. In most of the meetings I had with individuals and groups, they recognised what the Government had to do and what the prioritisation agenda has achieved. Everyone acknowledged that it was a worthwhile exercise. We all want more money, but everyone understood that it delivered. Let us just be clear on that aspect. No one is saying otherwise. They were complimentary about what had to be done, but naturally every discipline and section wants more money. The common solution to all concerns in Farmleigh on this strategy has been more money.

While I do not propose to discuss the reasons, the amount of money available for research has decreased by more than 20% since 2008. The Government had a duty to maximise the potential of this expenditure in terms of job creation and focus and to ensure Ireland maintained its high position in the various metrics relating to the research community, some of which I outlined. We have achieved this objective, and while I accept that some issues have been identified by the research community, we will work with it to address them. The major issue was that the research community asked for access to some of the competitive funding. Through the strategy, we are trying to find new ways to ensure there is guaranteed access to competitive funding. However, I have stressed to all those to whom I have spoken that funding must be competitive and applicants must prove they will have an impact, achieve excellence and contribute to talent. Researchers realise they can do a great deal to map the way in which money they have received over the years was expended and the talent this has produced. I have met many researchers and I have no doubt they have produced considerable talent, including many people who are involved in various companies. However, we are dealing with metrics and we want them to present maps showing where these people have gone and to build business cases. This is what we are trying to do. There is an open door in this regard and we will work on this as well.

We are in charge of much of the expenditure through Science Foundation Ireland. This is competitive funding. Other funding was allocated through the block grant to the Department of Education and Skills and difficulties have arisen with regard to this grant. I referred, for instance, to the cut of 20% in funding available to research. Our Department has managed to protect its budget and it was nice, at this time last year, to note the first increase in our budget. We have been able to track this expenditure and the task facing us to achieve this across all Departments.

The science strategy adopts a whole-of-government approach. Every Department must prioritise its funding and I expect this will be done. We have had extensive engagement and held a large number of meetings in recent months. It is probably the case that not all the 900 signatories to the letter read it. I have met the main people involved and I believe they now understand what we are trying to do and how they can help me to help them win more money.