Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We are very proud in our Department to have at least three management board members who are STEM graduates. It is one of the real reasons we have been soaring as a Department.

I really welcome the report and look forward to working with the committee on the recommendations because this is a key area of focus for our economic wellbeing as a country. Only as recently as this week, I turned the sod on a major new STEM building in Munster Technological University's Tralee campus. Through our capital programmes, we will continue to support the development of STEM facilities. What this means in a practical sense in Tralee is capacity for more students, modern laboratories and modern class facilities. A phenomenal construction project is under way there.

Last week, I announced that 422 schools would win a Curious Minds award from SFI. I went into two primary schools and met small schoolchildren who were so enthused and excited as a result of the initiative. They were genuinely curious and asked me all sorts of brilliant questions that I do not believe I would ever have asked at their age. This shows the importance of the work SFI is doing in partnering with schools. I thank the teachers, principals and others who prioritised the awards. I am aware that schools are busy places and that teachers have many competing demands, but I recognise that many schools have really prioritised this. It results in a pipeline of talent and of young people who want to go on to study STEM subjects.

There are interesting questions on gender and STEM that are for another day and that may be addressed in the report. I remember being at the DCU School of Education quite a while ago and was told by staff there that when, as part of a research project, they asked the pupils of a class of mixed gender whether any of them were interested in science, way more boys' hands went up than girls' hands. It was during the Covid pandemic. When the staff asked whether any of the pupils were interested in how we could come up with vaccinations and medicines to make people safe, more girls' hands went up than boys' hands. Therefore, it is a matter of defining science and how we teach and portray it. That is an interesting area too.