Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left) | Oireachtas source

I am well aware of the Government's approach, but the point the Minister seems to be diminishing is that it is the core of the Government's strategy that is being objected to by the entire scientific community. While the Government is funding basic research, as the Minister notes, it is funding oriented basic research. Best practice tells us that this will not be good enough in the long run. I think the scientists used the very good example of how a cure for diabetes had been discovered. If one undertakes targeted, oriented basic research, one is examining one aspect only, but if scientists are given free rein to take a wide berth, they can come up with something new which can be applied in a different field. The statistics show that what the scientists are saying is correct. PhD numbers are down and our university ratings are falling. The numbers involved in the scientific area in Trinity College Dublin are down by 50%. We are losing out on the best people precisely because of that approach. On a visit to Ireland the UK Nobel Laureate Sir Paul Nurse was on record as saying we had it the wrong way around and that it was unbalanced. It is not that we are doing everything wrong, but it is unbalanced and we need to co-ordinate the strategy better.

See this speech in context