Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I do not accept the Government's position on this at all. The 2020 plan was for 2.5% of GNP and in 2012, we were at 2%. We are now at 1.4% of GNP. We are now going backwards fast. It does not matter that bigger European countries are investing more as the whole point of using a metric such a percentage of GNP is that we can look at our contribution relative to our size. I absolutely accept the Minister of State's personal bona fides on this and I imagine that if he was dictator-in-chief - not that his politics would subscribe to that - we might get to 2.5%. I am not having a go at the Minister of State but I am having a go at the Government on this. It is not like the Government is saying we were at 2% and now we are 2.2% so there is a way to get to 2.5%.

We were at 2% and now we are at 1.4%. We are getting hit with Brexit and by a massive reconfiguration of the United States' entire approach to global taxation. We are dealing with really heavy stuff and I think we are all agreed that we must be world leaders in the areas of technology, science and innovation. How is it credible to say to this committee, to the Dáil and the Oireachtas that we were at 2%, that we are now at 1.4% but that the Government is really committed to getting to 2.5%? Will the Minister of State walk us through why that is a credible argument? Will he indicate when we will see it happen and whether we have gone from 2% to 1.4% and now have to get a full 0.9% of GNP back up?