John Halligan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

As the members will know, I am a supporter of CERN. Representatives of CERN will come to Ireland in July and we will have a further meeting with them to discuss the prospects of joining CERN.

People may ask why we are joining the European Southern Observatory, ESO, over CERN. The reason is very simple. Researchers and developers involved in astronomy in Ireland are regarded very highly and have a considerable impact. The Department made the decision to join ESO, which I think is the correct decision at this time.

The Deputy is correct, and I have spoken to him on a number of occasion about CERN. We have to join CERN at some stage. We will provide a further update to the committee when we meet representatives of CERN in July. We can apply for full membership, which is expensive, but to be honest, we do not that level of finance available. There is also a category of associate membership, but the problem with associate membership is that it only gives us 10% of the credits back. I do not think associate membership is a good deal but my officials will negotiate with CERN in July. We will keep the members informed of how the negotiations go. All the members present want Ireland to join CERN and we think we should join it.