Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator for his questions. First, on the regional matter, I reaffirm to the Senator and the committee my commitment and that of the Minister of State, Deputy Collins, and the Government to provide a site for, let us call it, the Wexford campus of the technological university for the south east, TUSE. I am limited in what I can say other than there is active engagement on it. When people in Wexford hear that, I am conscious they will have heard there has been active engagement for many years. Let me say there is active engagement that I expect to be brought to a fruitful conclusion shortly. There is an absolute concrete commitment, pardon the pun, from the Government to delivering a Wexford campus for the TUSE. I want to assure the Senator of that. I want to acknowledge at this committee the assistance of Wexford County Council, particularly its chief executive, in that regard and also the major work being done by IT Carlow. In terms of time, I will not go further than that, but I reiterate that commitment.

On the statement of strategy, it is timely the Senator referenced it as I signed off on it in recent days. I intend, subject to the agreement of the Cabinet secretariat, to bring it to the Cabinet next week and to publish it shortly thereafter. I would be delighted to engage with the Senator individually and with the committee on the statement of strategy, which sets out our plans for the Department for the next number of years. There are some quite exciting pillars in it on which I would like to build.

The Senator's third question on capital investments and research capacity are interlinked. My short answer is that the national development plan presents a major opportunity for the Government and the Taoiseach, who had the ambition to establish this Department, to firmly show their commitment to transforming the higher education sector through investment from a capital point of view in order to meet demographic needs and to transform infrastructure, including in the further education, innovation and science, FEIS, training, space and from a research point of view. We are not funding research adequately in this country. Considering the level of public spending on research compared to the European average, we are not where we need to be but we could close that gap and could make serious inroads into closing that gap in the lifetime of this Government. I am involved in very active discussions, as is the Minister of State, Deputy Collins, with the Taoiseach and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Michael McGrath, on these matters in the context of the review of the national development plan.

I should also say we are developing our new research policy for the country. Obviously, we need funding and a policy. We will basically use this year to kick off a national conversation with civic society and stakeholders on research, in terms of what should Ireland be good at, what is Ireland good at and what are the priority areas for investment for the next number of years, and develop the successor strategy to Innovation 2020 during the course of this year.