Dr. Ruth Freeman:

I thank the Senator for the question. As we said, we fund people across the system. As Professor Nolan said, those people are addressing questions of relevance to them, to society and to the economy, many of which now relate to climate across all areas. We have that fundamental base of individuals we need to support. On top of that, we are building strategic instruments. Some of those are research centres. As Professor Nolan said, we have the new all-island centre but we already have a number of research centres addressing the dual challenges we talked about, including MaREI and iCRAG, which are looking at different aspects of renewable energy and the impact on our geological structure.

The national challenge fund takes a different approach. It ask researchers to respond to specific questions and come up with solutions. One of the earliest challenges we funded was Farm Zero C. That was a programme led by Professor Kevin O'Connor in University College Dublin, UCD, to try to develop a carbon-neutral dairy farm. That programme has gone from strength to strength since we funded it and is the foundation for the national challenge fund now, where at least two thirds of the investment coming from the EU through the national recovery and resilience facility will be invested in projects that relate to the green transition, sustainable communities, sustainable food and waste. It is a massive area of interest and investment for us. As was said, it is possibly now the key issue that science needs to turn its attention to.