David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The committee knows that I have been raising this issue for some time. I also brought the Waterford Institute of Technology issue to the attention of the Committee of Public Accounts and we had a very robust exchange with the president of WIT. I researched the matter when I was looking at the WIT situation and while there is a national policy to govern intellectual property it is actually quite loose. It struck me that there was an attitude from the Higher Education Authority, HEA, and the Department that the committee did not understand the world of intellectual property and how it works, that we should be hands-off, that it was all very complex - which it may be - and that somehow we were against commercialising intellectual property by simply asking questions about whether the taxpayer was getting value for money. I was disappointed with that response initially but because we were diligent and we pursued and pressed the matter there are now two reports pending. We should try to get those reports in to the committee as soon as possible. This will underpin our approach because the reports have analysed the issue. One is a global look by the HEA at how intellectual property is governed and managed. While there is a national policy every institute of technology and university has its own policy and there are clear differences. We saw this when some of the heads of institutes and universities came to the committee and they had different views on how it all works. The policies for each institute are different and vary according to the institute; some are better at managing conflicts of interest, some are better at getting a higher stake for the State and so on. This is obvious. That is the global report. There is also the report into WIT, which funnily enough the HEA legal department has been looking at since before Christmas. I am not sure why there is a delay. The report has been with the HEA for nearly two months. We need this report published and we need it before the committee, as well as the global report.

I do not accept the Minister's response because I believe it is feasible to give us the spend, as accurately as they possibly can. Obviously, it is a complex matter because there are many stakeholders: Enterprise Ireland, Science Foundation Ireland, the HEA and European funding. There is an awful lot of funding and because there are a lot of funding streams, let us call a spade a spade, we know there are individuals within colleges, institutes of technology and universities - including very senior people who are paid by the taxpayer - who personally benefit from this. I am not saying it is wrong, but because there is a lot of money attached to intellectual property for institutes and for individuals, along with a huge amount of State investment, I am suspicious and concerned about why we are getting the response we have got from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. The Department of Education and Skills and the HEA were also pushing us back a bit on the matter. We need to look at it. The source will be the two reports, which the committee needs to look at. I am not letting the issue go. I say this only because I am interested in getting value for money for taxpayers. I have no difficulty with commercialising intellectual property. It is of huge benefit to the State and it has been of huge benefit to the south-east with regards to the WIT research. There are massive benefits but it has to be a level playing field, it has to be fair and the taxpayer has to be protected. We have to be able to do our job to analyse whether there is value for money.