John Halligan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will make a number of brief points. It is important to note that, when required to do so, Professor Ferguson provides top level, independent and informed advice to the Government, either in response to direct requests or through his involvement in cross-departmental groups such as Horizon 2020. I took some advice and made some inquiries on the model in other countries. Interestingly, there are other countries which invest far more in science that we do, and the Deputy and I agree that we should probably be doing a lot more in research and development, but there is no one model followed in some of the top countries across Europe for the structuring of their chief scientific adviser's role. In some countries, for instance, the UK, New Zealand and Malta, which are pretty highly involved in research and development, there is a separate chief scientific adviser. In other countries the role is undertaken by national academics. The Royal Netherlands Academy for Arts and Science does not have a dedicated, if one likes, chief scientific officer, while in others it can be a mix of the head or the president of the national academy of funding bodies. I considered countries across Europe and elsewhere to see if it was a disadvantage to us not to have it, and I found it not to be so.

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