Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is not a case of no one listening. We are fully engaged. I have offered to meet many groups before the strategy concludes to discuss it. We want to get it right. We have achieved a great deal with our agenda in the past three or four years. Under successive Governments during the past ten or 15 years, Ireland has built an important and world-recognised research ecosystem. We will continue building on that for Ireland's reputation. We are high achievers in many sectors. However, we also take an important view on job creation. We are proud of this and will not move away from it, so it is a question of working the two elements together. We recognise that, to have applied research, one needs basic research. One goes with the other, a fact to which we are not oblivious. We will work with the community to get the strategy right.

There has been a decrease in funding across all Departments, but the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation has been lucky enough to increase funding through the competitive fund group in recent years. The fight will be to have extra money spent on this area. That is what the strategy is for. It sets high targets that we must achieve to match our European colleagues. This will provide extra resources for all levels of research.

We are using international definitions; it is not a case of merging two together. They are the OECD categorisations and we do not change them. I will work with all sectors and all voices in this area to get it right. There is no doubt about this.

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