Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have mixed views about this legislation. I will try to highlight the areas that I support and those about which I have concerns.

Science Foundation Ireland is focussed on three distinct areas and this Bill is intended to significantly widen them. That would be all right if there were resources guaranteed to go with it. That is one of my key concerns.

It is a good idea that the legislation will enable SFI to provide funding on an all-Island basis. That is a positive development. I view the collaboration with international partners as being positive. Sometimes those international partners are based here. I myself see it, for example, in the relationship between the multinational companies in north Kildare and Maynooth college and, indeed, in other industries that have sprung up that are less high profile but that have surprised some of us with the numbers of those employed. The international collaboration or collaboration with multinational companies can be fruitful.

The Bill is the biggest change to Science Foundation Ireland since it was established in 2003 but not all of the proposed changes have been welcomed by the science and research community. As I stated, the international collaboration is to be welcomed. Hopefully, the funding to be accessed will be directed to the right areas that will not only provide a return for those industries but create off-shoots as well because that frequently happens.

One of our greatest strengths, which dates back to our investment in free second-level education and elevated into third level, has been that for a small country we have a capacity for high-quality research. Given that the size of our universities relative to some of those in some of the bigger countries are small, we have punched above our weight in terms of output. Down the decades there has in this area been a sensible approach in how we have gone about this compared to other countries.

That is where the concerns about the proposed changes have come. It seems that the intent is to steer the State towards more research funding projects that are focused on delivering jobs. That is at the core of it. In fact, whereas we all want to see jobs delivered out of any investment that is made, sometimes that desktop approach to this may well end up stifling creativity. Google, for example, allocates a certain amount of time for its work force to try things out. That kind of approach to research can deliver returns that are not about necessity being the mother of invention but about providing that creative space. I am concerned that the objective is becoming much too narrow.

I certainly want to see the greatest return in terms of jobs for any investment we will make but we might not be going about it in the right way by limiting the amount of research. There is the potential of limiting rather than expanding the amount of research even though we are expanding the number of areas on the spectrum. I will explain what I mean.

Science Foundation Ireland has a budget of €152 million in 2013, which is broadly in line with what it was last year. It is important that remains stable and can be added to. Whereas up to now Science Foundation Ireland had three areas of responsibility, it is now being increased to 14 areas. That would be acceptable if the Government were adding to the resources. I wonder if the research prioritisation steering group when increasing it from three to 14 areas realised that the same pot of money would be involved. There does not appear to be any guarantee that the funding will go beyond the €152 million that has been allocated.

I am nervous that we will have a scattergun approach by broadening the number and maybe having less focus in terms of the research that can be conducted. One of our great strengths is in the area of renewable energy, mainly because we have the raw material. A business in my constituency, Wavebob, was researching marine sources of energy. That seems to have folded in recent weeks because there was not sufficient funding to keep it going. Such research was at an embryonic stage and would have needed five to ten years. By limiting the amount of time in which to do that research, it may well have cut it off at the knees even though it could have been very beneficial in the long term given that we have such great natural resources. That highlights my concern. We are becoming less focused and stretching the money to cover a much broader range of areas even though I agree they may be viable areas for research.

At the moment we are not producing sufficient graduates to fill the positions in the IT sector and have had to go abroad to recruit people. Clearly we will not get research without the people available to do the research. We need to encourage others to come into that area. We need to look at this in the context of the entire education system. There is inadequate IT provision at second level or even prior to that. This will stunt our growth when it comes to researching areas included in the 14 or even in the three areas Science Foundation Ireland has been funding since 2003.

I welcome some of the provisions of the Bill, but while there might be more areas covered we might end up getting less out of it because we are stretching a very limited budget. I would be concerned that we will not get the kind of quality research or give things the time they require not only to be researched but also to be properly tried and Wavebob is such an example.

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