Brian Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

These specifics did not arise in the context of the European Council meeting but were discussed at sectoral level. The recommendations of the Von Rompuy report were accepted and it was agreed that the legislative consequences of that would be moved on by mid-next year and that this would be done as urgently as possible given parliamentary involvement in regard to the drafting at European level of four of the six legislative proposals.

We have had a strategy in place for the past ten years. Science Foundation Ireland has been established and research and development is recognised as an important function in terms of establishing a sustainable growth policy. The need for innovation and increased productivity across the economy is determined in many respects by the level of research and development and innovation in which indigenous and foreign industries engage. The policy of IDA Ireland has been successful and is probably only now beginning to generate the type of understanding among the foreign investment community of where Ireland sits in this respect. Five years ago, only 10% of IDA Ireland successes in terms of bringing investment to Ireland had a strong research and development component. Members will be aware 2009 was a difficult year, with a contraction of 10% in the Irish economy, yet IDA Ireland successfully brought 109 projects to this country, some 70% of which were companies already established here, which was a strong vote of confidence in a difficult year in this economy. These companies recognised the improvement in our competitiveness as a result of the policies being pursued by the Government.

Almost 50% of IDA Ireland wins this year have a research and development function. That is an important point in the context of the research community we have built up, the centres of science, engineering and technology, or CSETs, in various parts of industry and the industry partnerships this is creating. Some of the top multinationals in the world are involved in research projects, sponsored by Science Foundation Ireland through the CSETs, be they in Dublin, Limerick, Cork and so on. It has taken almost a decade for this to gain credibility. We needed to get the right people in to partner our researchers and ensure more PhDs.

Last week, more than 100 top industrialists in the web industry involved in Skype and so on were in Ireland. While the event received more than six hours of coverage by Bloomberg television, it did not get much coverage here. However, some things are not surprising. These are indications of how Ireland is viewed abroad and that industry is locating here. We are seen to have a good environment in which to develop entrepreneurship and enterprise. These are the industries of the future that will create the jobs of the future. We must ensure we have available more software engineers in this regard. What we are doing in terms of education policy to develop the sciences is fundamental to having a sustainable growth policy that is believable. Part of what we will be doing in the short term in this four-year plan is to put forward our growth policy, and there must be credibility behind that. One can pick figures where one likes and give an impression that everything is hunky dory, but we all know that the correction that must come in has its own dampening effect. It also means that we must balance the dampening effect on the initial growth prospects with the fact that if we do not do it, our ability to fund our deficits is put at serious risk. There are some trade-offs but-----

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