Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

On Horizon 2020, the precursor to Horizon Europe, we did very well in the end. We have drawn down more than €1 billion, but we are ambitious to do even more. That is even more essential now because science, research and innovation is going to be our future economic and societal well-being. We have seen that during the pandemic. We see it in all the international debate going on about taxation. With more and more focus on talent, skills and ingenuity, research will come to the fore.

I had a meeting with Enterprise Ireland, our lead agency on this, last week. It does the work for us in terms of our network contacts. Let us just say that I am putting plans in place to try to increase our presence in European organisations. Given that we have a Cabinet Minister, once we are allowed travel I am also trying to use my own office to build up those links as well and to do everything I possibly can to help promote Irish participation in Horizon Europe.

I saw the Senator's statement on mandatory hotel quarantines - he will be pleased to know I read his statements - and I take his point. Where I was coming from was twofold. First, Erasmus is different from a student deciding on his or her own to head off. We have a duty of care to these students. We have effectively sent them abroad, we have perhaps paid for their flights and we have a duty of care to get them back safely.

My second reason was probably similar to the Senator's point, in that I did not want students panicking and rushing home. I wanted them to stay where they were, do their exams and enjoy their Erasmus experience insofar as anyone could enjoy anything in a global pandemic. If mandatory hotel quarantine is still in place in respect of their Erasmus countries when they are due to come home, they will not have to worry about finding the €1,800 because we will do that for them. The Senator is right, in that I am not aware of anyone having availed of this provision yet. I am not expecting it to be a large burden on the Exchequer. Far from it. It is a measure that makes sense from a public health point of view, as it saves people from dashing back to the country, and from an educational point of view. Some people on Erasmus are not due to come back until August or September. I believe there are five Irish students in Italy who are not due home until September. I have a month-by-month list. I hope that by the time many of these students return their countries that are on the mandatory hotel quarantine list today will not be then. Mandatory hotel quarantine is a necessary but short-term policy measure. I was pleased to hear the Taoiseach's comment on this. It should not be seen as a medium-term objective. We do not want to cut ourselves off from the world.

Regarding international students more broadly, one of the reasons I spoke up and felt so strongly about fully vaccinated people not having to go into mandatory hotel quarantine was that I had spoken to a number of university presidents and others in the education sector, and they spoke about how quarantining would have been bizarre for someone from, for example, the US who had been fully vaccinated with an EU-approved vaccine for a number of weeks. It would have sent a message to the world if that student had to stay in a mandatory hotel quarantine facility despite being fully vaccinated. The changes that the Minister for Health has made on the basis of medical advice sends a message to other countries, in particular the US where vaccination is going well, that this situation will evolve. As people are fully vaccinated, it can give us a great deal of confidence about the ability of international students to come to Ireland again and, more crucially, the ability of students to return to campus. Rapid testing, the vaccination programme and increased investment are the three legs to the stool that will see a much better college experience for our own students as well as international students in September.