David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have a final contribution. As one of those who asked the questions and took an active interest in this, I want to put on the record that an awful lot of good work is being done by universities and institutes of technology in research and development, co-location and commercialising intellectual property. None of that is bad. Legitimate questions were asked about process, conflicts of interest and how the companies are established. The point was that I felt we were being pushed back a bit on what were genuine concerns. We now have two reports that verify those concerns. They are a vindication of the questions we were asking. The HEA was asleep at the wheel when it came to this issue because it was, essentially, throwing it back to Science Foundation Ireland. I think Knowledge Transfer Ireland is the body that looks at it. It possibly had a role but certainly the HEA has a role from a governance perspective and it allowed a situation to arise where there were different policies in different institutes of technology and universities. Some were good while others were not so good. If we now have more uniformity and a strengthened policy that underpins this, that is for the good. The HEA should reflect on the fact that the questions we put are for the good because we want to see an improvement and if we get an improvement here, that will be good. When we raised this issue previously, I was inundated with emails from people who work in this area telling me that we do not fully understand it and are being anti-enterprise and negative. That is not the case. At all times, we recognised that there is huge benefit to institutes of technology and universities engaging in research and development and with the private sector and individuals within those institutions commercialising their intellectual property. None of that was seen as bad. Genuine concerns were raised that have been dealt with to some extent but I do not think they have been dealt with fully.