John Halligan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I see where Deputy Lawless is coming from regarding intellectual property. Of course, this Bill delves into research, etc. The Deputy is correct that there are other countries, such as Israel, which have almost reached 2.5% of GDP. I would make the following interesting point. The scoreboard dates back to the recession, particularly, the banking crisis, when we were not able to invest as much in innovation, research and development as we should have been able to do. As against that, if one looks at the innovation scoreboard, Ireland has dropped back one position but, apparently, that is not significant. We are in the top ten in innovation. Deputy Lawless is absolutely correct that it should be our goal to reach 2.5% of GDP. It would be folly and disingenuous of me to say to the Deputy that we can reach that in the next number of years. Personally, I do not think we can. We will be in a reasonable position, with many other countries across Europe. If I say to the Deputy I am aiming to get 2.5% of GDP, I certainly cannot reach 2.5% in a year or two. There is the possibility that we could reach 1.6% or 1.7% of GDP, and maybe 1.8%, which would be fairly good based on where we came from and how we were investing in innovation ten years ago, which is where the relevant scoreboard and the European directive on 2.5% of GDP came from.

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