Michael Ahern (Cork East, Fianna Fail)

I am glad to have the opportunity to speak on this important issue.

Europe, including Ireland, cannot stand still, nor can we act alone. The world is becoming ever more interconnected and we need to exploit that interconnectedness to address new and emerging challenges, including globalisation, demographic shifts, climate change, the need for new sustainable energy sources and labour mobility. These are the issues facing Europe in the 21st century. Borders are meaningless in the face of such challenges and EU member states cannot meet them alone but, acting together, Europe can deliver results and respond to the concerns of its people. The expansion of the European Union from 15 to 27 member states in a relatively short period of time means new and innovative methods for co-operating and acting more effectively are required to allow it respond to the rapid changes in the world. This means adjusting and modifying our policies and rethinking some of the ground rules for working together. The Lisbon reform treaty provides the proper framework to undertake these tasks. Ireland has been a huge beneficiary of EU integration and enlargement and the European Union continues to be crucial to our future well-being and prosperity. That is why a more effective Union is in Ireland's best interests and why ratification of the treaty is so important.

Across Europe there is a consensus on the need to create a market for innovation and innovative ideas. The challenge for Europe is that competition for human resources in science and technology is now global. Europe is in direct competition with other major trading blocs for the best research resources. Researchers, for example, are moving more rapidly. We need to find ways to address these challenges.

Access to EU Structural Funds and participation in the European Union's research and development programmes, for example, have done much to enable researchers in Ireland to access funds, collaborate with European partners in cutting-edge research, develop a national system of innovation and upgrade national science and technology infrastructure. EU supports have been used, alongside steadily increasing national supports, to lay the foundations for a knowledge-based economy. There is a high degree of complementarity between Ireland's objectives in science, technology and innovation and wider European objectives in this area. The renewed focus on the Lisbon agenda and the emphasis placed on strengthening the European research area coincide with the implementation of the most comprehensive plan for investment in science, technology and innovation that has ever taken place in Ireland. A key element of the strategy for science, technology and innovation, 2006-13, relates to Ireland's interaction with the rest of Europe and the world. The strategy provides us with a distinct opportunity to ensure maximum economic and social benefits are derived from the Government's commitment of €8.2 billion to this area under the national development plan. Activities at a European level will contribute directly to the achievement of the objectives set out in the strategy. Irish researchers and enterprises participate actively in the EU Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development, a large multi-annual research programme that complements national funding for research and development. The framework programme supports research across a range of subject areas, for example, ICT, life sciences, nanotechnology, food and agriculture, social sciences and humanities, all of which are important priority areas for Ireland in terms of economic and social development. The framework programme provides funding to academic researchers, large enterprises and SMEs in Ireland to engage in collaborative research partnerships with their peers throughout the EU and beyond. It also provides financial support through the "Marie Curie Actions" to encourage the mobility of researchers across Europe and to encourage researchers to move between the worlds of academia and industry.

In overall terms, researchers and enterprises in Ireland received approximately €210 million of research funding from the Sixth Framework Programme, FP6, the largest monetary sum received to date from the framework programme. Funding provided under previous rounds of the framework programme, going back to the early 1980s, was a key element in building up the research capacity that is in place in the country today. The programme is also directly linked with the emergence of some key Irish start-up enterprises that have progressed to become important global players in a number of industry sectors.

Our experience of participation in the framework programmes and the European Space Agency has been very useful in this regard in helping us to build communities of researchers across industry, in academia and internationally. The European framework programmes have always been an important element in the internationalisation of Irish research. They have enabled academic and industry research groups to work with peers across Europe and derive the benefits associated with collaborative research, for example, access to knowledge networks, access to specialist equipment, sharing of costs and risks and, in particular for industry, the possibility of opening commercial opportunities.

In 2007, the European Commission launched the Seventh EU Framework Programme, FP7, with a budget of €50 billion to cover the period 2007-13. In scale and scope, FP7 is the most ambitious of the framework programmes to date. Irish researchers and enterprises will continue to participate actively in the collaborative research and mobility sub-programmes of FP7. In addition, there are new elements in FP7 such as industry-led joint technology initiatives, JTIs, and the European Research Council, ERC, to reward excellence in frontier research.

FP7 will be a key element of the European research landscape that will help Irish researchers and enterprises to achieve the targets set out in the Strategy for Science, Technology and Innovation. In funding terms alone, it is expected that FP7 will inject some €600 million of additional research funding into the national RTD system. The importance of science, research and development, innovation, skills and training policies and better regulation are paramount. The road to meeting the wider environmental challenges of climate change and energy as well as the trade and development issues have most chance of success if managed collaboratively with our EU partners.

Ireland supports openness and free trade. Our whole approach to globalisation is clearly linked to the improving competitiveness of the EU. This momentum must be maintained. The unambiguous connection between embracing globalisation and competitiveness, through national and EU programmes, must be maintained. The Lisbon reform treaty will provide the necessary cohesion to improve and drive our competitiveness.

Skills, human resources and creativity are the mainstay of our competitiveness. Increasingly, mobile investment is seeking skills as well as lower costs. We cannot always compete on cost but we can compete on the strength of our knowledge base, skills innovation, networking capabilities and flexibility. For Ireland in the 21st century, competitiveness will depend on merging these attributes with a flair and commitment to innovation that is unmatched in the markets in which we compete.

Collaboration — among employees, between firms and in the form of alliances with technology institutes and universities — increases our innovation performance. Mutual economic benefits can be derived from knowledge-sharing and mentoring programmes between successful large companies and SMEs. Increasingly, it will also involve coalitions that cross national boundaries, building on the transnational programmes promoted by the EU and our other international partners.

Implementing the Single European Market has opened all sorts of product and service markets to competition and provided a stimulus to innovation. It enables resources to flow more effectively to sectors, regions and these markets, to provide the best returns and improve Europe's competitiveness. For example the development of business clusters and networks and transnational co-operation can be a potent force in strengthening their growth. Transnational co-operation between clusters can act as bridge builders across Europe's regions. By connecting clusters through EU programmes and our other international partners, new business and research contacts are made and fostered, allowing cross-border knowledge flows and innovation. This cross-border activity can improve labour mobility and stimulate new opportunities for innovators and entrepreneurs and provide international expertise.

A number of recent initiatives by the EU Commission are to become drivers of the EU innovation strategy. We are particularly supportive of creating the proper conditions and framework for intensive collaboration, partnership and clustering among companies and sectors. We are actively seeking to develop this at national level, including through some relatively new programmes such as an industry-led research network scheme operated by Enterprise Ireland and the CSETs programme of Science Foundation Ireland.

As new models of economic activity emerge in a globalised market place, new thinking is also required on services innovation if policy and supports favouring services innovation are to be matched to the new models. In the light of the growing recognition of the need for more environmentally friendly products, processes and services, and the future importance of environmental conservation to the global economy, there also appears to be significant growth opportunities within the global market for indigenous industry in this sector and, potentially, for foreign direct investment. Innovation will be a key element in exploiting such opportunities.

The EU has played a critical role in the formation of our successful and vibrant economy. Yet, the benefits of EU membership go far beyond financial transfers. Almost no aspect of our public life has been untouched. The European Union has contributed to the modernisation of the Irish economy and society and the Union, under the Lisbon reform treaty, will continue to be a modernising influence in our move towards a knowledge economy.

See this speech in context