Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

The research and development performance of Irish industry has shown a worthwhile improvement in recent years. Data made available by Forfás indicates that business expenditure on research and development increased from €917 million in 2001 to €1,076 million in 2003. We have made considerable progress, but more needs to be done. The EU's research and innovation performance is significantly behind the US and Japan. Ireland's performance is still below the EU average. One of the two central conclusions of the Enterprise Strategy Group in 2004 was that an increased focus on research should be a core pillar of enterprise policy.

The national action plan for promoting investment in research and development to 2010, Building Ireland's Knowledge Economy, was published last August. It sets out challenging targets for enterprise research and development performance, such as a doubling the number of companies with minimum scale research and development activity, or activity that is worth more than €100,000 per annum. It envisages a fourfold increase in the number of firms that engage in research and development expenditure of more than €2 million per annum. It recommends that overall business expenditure on research and development should be more than doubled, to €2.5 billion. Enhanced research and development performance by firms needs to be supported by vibrant science and technology infrastructure, which can increase the pool of talented researchers available to industry and generate intellectual property that can be commercialised by firms.

Work is under way on programmes, initiatives and strategies that will facilitate the fulfilment of the challenging agenda I have outlined. The new Cabinet sub-committee on science, technology and innovation, which I chair, has mandated the interdepartmental committee on science, technology and innovation to prepare a strategic implementation plan to develop Ireland's knowledge economy.

The development agencies, Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland, together with Science Foundation Ireland are working closely with my Department in the development of the plan and, indeed, the key performance metrics. The targets are reflected in Enterprise Ireland's new strategy, TransformingIrish Industry, which I launched recently.

Among the initiatives which I expect the plan to incorporate are a strengthening of the infrastructure for intellectual property, protection and commercialisation in third level institutions, greater promotion of research and development among non-research and development performing firms, initiatives to improve productivity and efficiency and simpler, more accessible financial support for both collaborative and in-house research and development.

We have step-changed the level of State investment in research and development since 1998-99 through the PRTLI programme and the Science Foundation Ireland Programme, which has greatly expanded research capacity.

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