Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

There has been a review of Enterprise Ireland. I am preparing a roadmap or blueprint to achieve the Lisbon Agenda target of 2.5% in research and development. This will include the business spend as well as the State spend. We have signed up for the goals. We are in favour of increased research and development investment. We did a fantastic job in the past five or six years in research and development compared to the previous 20 years, which has brought us to a certain level. I am very committed to this subject.

We now need, in a nuts-and-bolts fashion, to work out how we will achieve the Lisbon targets, how to double the number of researcher postgraduates in the next six or seven years, what it will mean for the expansion of universities or institutes of technology and what it will mean for business to increase significantly the business spend in research and development. We have all signed up to the objectives and goals. We now need to sign up for and work through the incremental steps necessary to achieve the challenging targets we set ourselves over the next five to six years. I hope to have this completed by July.

I would welcome a debate in the House in the autumn on research and development, because it is important for the Parliament to speak on the importance of research and development to Ireland's economic competitiveness in the future.

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