Mr. Seamus McCarthy:

A couple of things occur to me. It is a little bit surprising to hear it said that it would be difficult to understand the State's investment in particular lines of research because all of the accounting is done on a project basis.

There might be issues around the attribution of overheads or the like, but it should be possible to take a good stab at determining the level of State investment in any individual line of research that gives rise directly to a spin-out. Maybe a distinction is being made between having a project on the one hand and, on the other, applying other processes and bringing other individuals in to market it to investors and so on. However, that should not be beyond the bounds of possibility of designing systems. As mentioned, any commercial research that is undertaken by companies will have accounting that allows them to know what the costs and benefits are. I would be reluctant to see the State sector saying that it cannot do that from an accounting point of view. It has to be possible.