John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this subject. I welcome the new technological universities that have been established. There is a clear pathway now ahead in terms of the development of the status and activity of each of those entities and a great deal of what they will be engaged in will centre around the sciences because the future is all about solutions through science. Whether it is life sciences or pharmaceuticals or the medical sector, all of those have left a mark on world markets, in that products from this country sold abroad are often innovative and used by the big companies. It is important that we involve the SME sector in order that it can bring forward, perhaps with the universities, the ideas and the proposals that such companies have to develop a product and commercialise it and then internationalise it in the context of our work abroad.

Enterprise Ireland does a fantastic job in promoting companies abroad and it has built up a huge reserve of respect for Irish companies and for the innovations that they have brought to the international markets. I see the new universities playing a central role in developing this whole area, in ensuring that they have a pipeline of developments that can be taken up in business here and then can be internationalised through Enterprise Ireland. I look forward to the success in that area.

I also want to mention, in the context of the universities and bringing the regions that they each represent together giving everyone an input into the universities, that every county within the region where the universities have been established should make sure that they are all-inclusive and that there is a constructive meaningful role played by every county in the make-up of the university campus, to the structure and to a physical presence in each county. In that regard, I would mention, in particular, Kilkenny city and county, where we will be linked to Carlow-Waterford and should engage with the developments that they have established in each of their counties in terms of the colleges that they have had and the numbers that they have built up.

There are many other subjects beside sciences. In terms of Kilkenny, there is tourism and I believe there is a need for a Norman museum and study centre.

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