John Halligan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The key metric for the assessment of innovative activity in research and development is expenditure as a percentage of GNP. Ireland's research and development intensity rate is estimated at 1.43% for 2016. In July 2017, the CSO released the national income and expenditure annual results for 2016, including the new modified gross national income, GNI, indicator, which has been designed to exclude globalisation effects that we believe disproportionately impact on the measurement of the size of the Irish economy using GNI in the context of research and development intensity. While the percentage rates are higher, there is still a fallback for Ireland's gross national expenditure from 1.81% in 2015 to an estimated 1.72% in 2016. The 2016 gross expenditure on research and development amounted to an estimated €3.25 billion. It is important to note that €761 million was public investment and under €2.5 billion was research and development investment. The Deputy is asking if we are just imagining that we might reach 2.5%. I can tell him that I have been to countries all over Europe that are asking the same question of whether they can reach 2.5%. They are experiencing the same difficulties as us; there is no question about that. I respect what the Deputy is saying and I think he has a right to ask this because it is almost a European directive that we should reach 2.5% by 2020. If the Deputy and I are sitting here in 2020, which I hope he will be because he is younger than me-----