Professor Mark Ferguson:

I can address the question on research. If the UK leaves without a deal, the UK Government has committed to fund the UK component of Horizon 2020 and the existing European programmes. If it honours that commitment, then those existing programmes should proceed to the end. If the UK leaves the EU without being a part of the European research programmes, which would be the case if there was a no-deal Brexit then, going forward, it will not be an eligible partner. That poses two problems. The first is that Irish researchers need to find partners from other European countries, which is the nature of the Chair's second question, and we are stimulating that. For example, a couple of years ago, we opened the first Fraunhofer-SFI German research centre in Dublin. We are busy building relations with the researchers, with Germany, Lithuania and so on. It is essentially a substitution exercise for future European programmes.

It leaves the question of what will happen with bilateral collaboration between Ireland and the UK because the UK will no longer be part of those programmes. We have put in place all of the administrative arrangements bilaterally, but the funding will have to increase significantly. To give a ballpark number, 10% of collaborations are with the UK. Ireland's drawdown under Horizon 2020 will be €1.25 billion, 10% of which is €125 million. That is a rough number for the shortfall. That is what currently funds the Irish component of those collaborations with the UK through our EU subscription. It will no longer do that. We will have to find that money for the bilateral collaboration elsewhere. That is all in place, there is no further administration to do, and the programmes will survive a hard Brexit. The money to do that is required and that will be a challenge because Ireland will also have to contribute more to the European budget. The Minister for Finance will have challenges because he will want to contribute to the European budget to deal with Brexit, and there is this issue too.