Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I sincerely thank Members for their constructive and positive approach to the consideration of this Bill.

The primary changes extending SFI's remit through this legislation are as follows. As well as continuing to supporting oriented basic research in accordance with its current remit, SFI will now be able to fund applied research through funding supports via the higher education institutions. Essentially, this will allow SFI to bring research outcomes closer to the market through increased commercialisation, the development of new products and the generation of new services and technologies. Ultimately, this will lead to the creation of new sustainable quality jobs for the country. The legislation will also enable the realignment of the strategic focus of SFI to cover the strategic areas identified in the research prioritisation steering group and approved by the Government in March last year.

Significantly, the legislation will for the first time also enable SFI to provide funding on an all-island basis, enabling it to fund researchers and institutions based in Northern Ireland linked with institutions or companies in the State, subject to excellence and strategic criteria being met. It will also allow SFI to enter, subject to the consent of the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, collaborative arrangements with international partners and help Ireland leverage significant non-Exchequer research funding into the country. In doing so, it will also enable Ireland to support the wider EU research agenda through programmes being supported under the European Union's Horizon 2020 programme which will have a budget of more than €70 billion in the period 2014 to 2020. I am particularly proud that the Irish Presidency chaired these negotiations and, personally, proud of the work all of our agencies and Departments have done in reaching a successful political conclusion of the negotiations. As former chairman of these negotiations, I am proud that we will potentially have a funding stream of approximately €1 billion which will surpass the target set in the current framework programme.

The Bill also provides a legislative basis for SFI to stimulate the study and awareness of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, STEM, subjects. In addition, there are a number of ancillary provisions in the Bill that are not specific to SFI but which relate to enterprise development functions in the Shannon free zone, amendment of the freedom of information, FOI, Acts specific to the enterprise agencies, and strengthening Forfás's function to provide research data so as to fall in line with international best practice.

The Bill is extremely important for Irish research. It affords us an ideal opportunity to build on a decade or more of sustained and necessary Government investment in research and development. In an Irish context, as a small open economy that is very much affected by outside developments in Europe and the wider world, it is not tenable to avoid substantial research and development investment in the hope of taking advantage of and benefiting from research discoveries elsewhere. The bottom line is that research outcomes generate economic gains and research performing countries are careful to protect their research and development investment. In such a context, Ireland must be equally forward thinking in its approaches to creating improved research and development outcomes. The Bill fits the bill in that regard.

I am particularly encouraged by the all-island and international partnerships aspects of the Bill. Such collaborations present the potential for gaining great added value from our research investment in leveraging investment into the country and will simultaneously bolster our capacity to generate programmes capable of attracting Horizon 2020 funding from the European Union. In my role as Minister of State with responsibility for research and innovation I am keen for Ireland to aggressively target Horizon 2020 funding and the extended Science Foundation Ireland legislation will support our efforts to enhance our success rate in this regard.

The promotion of the study of stem science technology, engineering and mathematics subjects is also a great interest of mine in my complementary brief as Minister of State at the Department of Education and Skills. It is essential that our school students receive the right stimuli to encourage their interest in these areas. They are, after all, the pipeline that will produce Ireland's engineers, mathematicians and scientists of the future. Therefore, the outreach and awareness work undertaken by Science Foundation Ireland in these areas is of the utmost importance. This is reflected in the legislation.

I thank everyone who has contributed to the formulation of this legislation. I thank my colleagues in the House for their input into it. I am very confident that the Bill will play a significant role in turning these good ideas into jobs. It is worth noting that the global innovation index 2013 shows that Ireland is ranked tenth out of 142 countries. In July 2013 Naturemagazine, the eminent scientific publication, cited Ireland as one of five up and coming countries for research. Only last Friday I was extremely pleased to welcome the publication of an innovation indicator which classified Ireland in the highest category of top performers. According to the new indicator of innovation output, Sweden, Germany, Ireland and Luxembourg are the EU member states which are deriving the most benefit from their innovation. We are hitting the right metrics and targets. This legislation will be important in ensuring we can continue on that road.

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