Derek Nolan (Galway West, Labour)
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Is that agreed? Agreed. The next petition for consideration is petition No. P00029/12 from Dr. Ciarán McMahon regarding open access to publicly-funded research. This petition concerns research and science funding in Ireland. The petitioner would like research which is funded by the taxpayer to be provided free of charge to the public. The secretariat and the committee consulted the Departments of Education and Skills and Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. It is the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, and in particular, the Minister of State, Deputy Seán Sherlock, who is responsible for innovation and research who deal with this issue. The recommendation is to forward the Department's response to the petitioner, informing him of the national principles for open access policy statement which was launched after the petition was received. The statement on that matter last October shows the Minister is committed to making outputs from State-funded research publicly available to potential users across Ireland's research community, be they in the education, business, charitable or public sector.

The view of the committee is that the national open access policy will increase the visibility and improve access to the outputs of publicly-funded research and that the national steering committee on open access policy is working towards a sustainable national infrastructure for open access. The committee notes that the policy document shows that 20 State-supported research funders and entities in Ireland have signed up to the open access policy already. The committee notes that the national steering committee on open access policy will operate transparently and plans to issue regular statements on its progress in exploring and developing a sustainable national infrastructure incentives and rewards system to achieve its goals. The committee considers that the principles contained in the national principles on open access policy statement will be effective. However, due to the existing variations in access to open access infrastructure and the different maturity of open access policies and practices, the committee accepts that a phased approach to implementation will be necessary to broaden the coverage of the open access infrastructure beyond Irish universities to include provision for all publicly-funded research in Ireland. In view of the fact that open access to publicly-funded research already exists in Ireland and its development is ongoing, the committee has decided to close the petition after communicating its findings to the petitioner. Is that agreed? Agreed.

Petition No. P00049/12 is from Mr. Frank Cullinane on the under-reporting of road traffic accidents in Ireland. The petitioner has written to the committee and asked that the petition be withdrawn. Therefore, the committee will no longer pursue the petition and will close it. Is that agreed? Agreed.

The final petition for consideration is petition No. P00063/12 from Ms Christine Oman entitled clean air and clean streets. The petitioner would like to see an extension of the smoking ban to all public areas, including parks, beaches, streets and public squares. The petition is deemed to be admissible.

The recommendation is that as a preliminary step, before making any further decisions or a weighting as to the value or merit of the consideration, the committee should refer the petition to the Department of Health for its consideration and ask it to report to the joint committee on whether it has any plans to extend the smoking ban or has conducted any research on proposals to extend the smoking ban to public areas. Is that agreed?