Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Of course. On research, development and innovation, the European innovation scoreboard put Ireland in sixth place overall last year. We were considered a strong innovator, with our position improving from 11th the previous year. We are moving in the right direction. In 2021, gross expenditure on research, development and innovation increased to an estimated €4.686 billion, which is its highest level since the Central Statistics Office, CSO, began conducting surveys. This represents a 75% increase over the 2010 figure, which was just over €2.5 billion. The increase has been largely driven by business expenditure on research, development and innovation. Growing enterprise innovation is a key policy objective of the White Paper on enterprise policy to 2030. To achieve this, the strategy sets a target of 2.5% of GNI* to be spent by the public and private sectors combined on research and development by 2030.

Money talks on this issue. We are seeing the private sector spending a lot more on research, development and innovation. A big part of our trade success internationally has been adding significant value to products. Last year, for the first time, trade in goods and services in and out of Ireland was valued at more than €1 trillion. For a country with a population of just over 5 million, that is an extraordinary figure. It is driven by the multinational sector but also by growing Irish companies. We need to see more turnover and profit being driven back into research, development and innovation. We are seeing that in the private sector and we need to match it in the public sector by way of investment in universities, centres of excellence and so on.