Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael)

I thank the Minister for his considered reply. I share Deputy Rabbitte's view. We are committed to a big science and technology spend each year and none of us in this House is competent to judge the value of much of that work. It is done on faith and both the Minister and Members will be urged to sustain and enhance that spend in future years as part of a commitment to the knowledge economy.

The other issue raised by Deputy Rabbitte is central in terms of how effective we are in using it. I note Enterprise Ireland has launched what it terms "competence centres", which are designed to try to get better application of research coming from universities. While this amendment may not be perfectly designed and could be improved, it could dove-tail with other initiatives of that nature to try to ensure that the spend in which we are engaged and the ideas generated in Ireland are commercialised. I, therefore, welcome the Minister's commitment to at least have his officials look further at this proposal. The world has changed and we are going to have to look to ourselves and ideas generated here as a source of enterprise and a knowledge base for the future. We must re-equip ourselves.

Our tax code has been rather lazily designed around trying to attract other people's ideas or, unfortunately, supporting property and we need to think afresh about how we as a country can make a living in the future. Sadly, we became diverted onto a disastrous path in recent years and we have to find a road back to a more genuine base of enterprise that can sell abroad. We perhaps are not the best equipped to understand the choices that have to be made, but we have to start learning pretty quickly and familiarise ourselves with this territory and how we can exploit it for the future of our country.

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