Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats)

I move amendment No. 20:

In page 51, between lines 10 and 11, to insert the following:

“Report on direct funding of research and development

35. The Minister shall, within 6 months of the passing of this Act, prepare and lay before Dáil Éireann a report on the costs and benefits of replacing or reducing existing research-and-development tax credits with a system of direct public funding or grants for enterprise innovation.”.

We have had a lot of discussion on this so I am not going to repeat those parts of the discussion. There is one point I want to make because it is important and we did not cover it. One of the sectors of the economy where we can see we are suffering from a lack of innovation and investment in research and development is the entire construction sector, where we are behind our peer countries in terms of productivity levels. This is certainly not the entire solution to the housing crisis. However, one of the solutions and one of the things that would help is to increase productivity in the construction sector, use more modern methods of construction, have better investment in research and development, more modern techniques and more investment on the capital side. We have had a good discussion on the issues. I am just making the point that there will be wider benefits if we can get the balance right on research and development across our economy. That is the point I wanted to make. I will press the amendment.