Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I wish to pose a few questions and make a few observations. I am not sure how much basic scientific research comes into the Minister of State's brief and my figures may be out of date but I think it has been cut by about 60%. Scientists who were engaged in basic scientific research have essentially been outsourced to the pharmaceutical companies. Rather than developing new molecules, they are testing drugs for the pharmaceutical companies based in Ireland. I have met some of our leading scientists in the past two or three years. What they say is that this move away from basic scientific research and innovation towards a much more commercial role is essentially killing the innovation pipeline, the really high-tech stuff. Maybe not now, but in two, three or four years' time, our labs will dry up with our own research. Those scientists have met me privately. Several of them are worried about speaking out publicly, which is something to be aware of, but they are very concerned about that. I do not know if this falls within the Minister of State's remit and it may be for the Department of Education and Skills, but certainly anybody who is looking at innovation would want to know that. I want the Minister of State to know that and perhaps he would come back to the committee on it. He may already have a view on it.

The Vote before the committee is significant, comprising several hundred million euro. Does the Minister of State foresee any changes to it? In December, the Minister of State and I and all Members of the Dáil looked at the Supplementary Estimate for the Department of €50 million, which revised the original Estimate. I accept that the Minister and Minister of State are new to the role but does the Minister of State foresee making any changes during the rest of the year to the €333 million being brought forward? Is there anything within that spend that is not providing value for money that the committee and, therefore, the Dáil should know about? Is there anything that the group of Ministers, whatever way they work, might start doing that had not been envisaged and that might cost some extra money?

One of the subheads included in the Vote is our membership of international organisations. I would be keen for Ireland to join CERN in Switzerland, which is part of the physics group. This is something we have not done before. Does the Minister of State know how much it would cost? There are two types of membership - full membership and associate membership. Currently, three countries are associate members. Are there any plans for Ireland to join CERN and, if so, how much would it cost?

There is another issue on which I would like to know if any money is allocated. The Minister, quite rightly, encouraged everyone to start looking at science, technology, engineering and mathematics, STEM, subjects. However, there is a development gap between our scientists and our engineers. Scientists say that they are very good at creating very impressive science but they are not trained and usually not very interested in its commercialisation. Engineers are very good at product development but engineering professors say there is an ongoing lack of State investment in the linkages between the science and the engineers and specifically in terms of product development. It is something Ireland has never done well. The heads of schools say it is an area that needs investment.

It may come through the education Vote but it is certainly relevant to the Minister's Department.

I wish to pick up on a comment made by the Minister or Minister of State on the need to attract in the best academics - I could not agree more - and people from the private sector into academia. One of the biggest impediments to Ireland attracting really high calibre foreign academics and high calibre private sector people to go into academia is the academic hiring framework, which does not allow consideration of either private sector experience or foreign academic experience. Let me give an example of how this is hurting Ireland right now. I spoke with a professor recently who secured a lot of European money on Big Data and he needs to hire a group of people. He needs to hire two types of people - people from the private sector who are Big Data analysts from Twitter, Google and Facebook, etc., some of whom work in Ireland. He also needs to hire some world class academics - Cambridge is one of the leading areas, MIT, Caltech etc. He explained that he can employ them on €32,000 which is the starting salary for a junior academic. However, he is not allowed to take into account any of their academic work. He can turn to an MIT professor and say he is not allowed to pay that individual according to his 20 years' academic work in MIT because he did not do it in Ireland. Obviously, no leading academic will come to Ireland for that amount. Similarly, if he approaches people in Facebook, Google, Twitter and so on he is not allowed take into account, in the increment calculation, any of their work. He said he can hire somebody who has been working in the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine on bovine inoculation for a decade and pay that person because he or she is a public sector worker and that counts but he cannot take into account any private sector experience or any foreign academic experience. I was told this about six months ago. Perhaps the position has changed but I do not think it has. I raise this issue as I fully agree that we need to bring in the best people from abroad and from the private sector into academia but we are stopping ourselves doing that at the moment.