David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome that the report has been published at last. Looking back to when we first dealt with this matter and, as a committee, put a spotlight on this issue, we might remind ourselves that we were told by the HEA that there was no problem and nothing to see. I felt there was pushback against members of this committee even asking questions. The attitude was pretty much one that we should keep our hands off this issue, that members did not understand it, that it was very complex, that commercialising intellectual property is much more complex than we could have imagined, and so on. That tone troubled me at the time. Far from there being nothing to see here, we now have a report which shows that there was a lack of uniformity, to say the least, across the institutes, that the policy in some areas was quite weak, and that conflicts of interest in that area needed to be strengthened. The report makes recommendations which I think are good and which will strengthen the ability of institutes of technology and universities to protect themselves as well as taxpayers. All of that is to the good.

A separate report into Waterford is imminent. We also sought an analysis from the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and others on how much money is spent by the State in supporting intellectual property and commercialising intellectual property.