Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted that Deputy Ó Ríordáin is sharing his time with me. I acknowledge the work of Mallow Development Partnership in the excellent Munster Maths and Science Fair that took place on 16 October this year. Up to 5,000 people attended and it was sponsored by the Irish American Partnership and Cork County Council, working through the Mallow Development Partnership to bring science to the people. I pay tribute to everybody who was involved. Although the event takes place every year on a Sunday, if the Minister is of a mind and is still in the Department this time next year we would be delighted to welcome him to Mallow. He could see for himself the interplay between students, members of the public and research entities like Teagasc and all the citizen science engagement that takes place. It was a perfect model and I acknowledge the successful role played by Mallow Development Partnership in bringing it about. It was bringing science to the people and an excellent example of science in action.

An entity close to my own heart is the Irish Centre for Maternal and Child Health Research, INFANT, in Cork. It is such an important entity in terms of perinatal healthcare, making pregnancy safe for women, ensuring the health and future well-being of children and improving the survival and long-term health outcomes for newborn babies. The Minister must forgive me for being parochial again, but if he ever happens to find himself visiting University College Cork and if he visits INFANT, he will see for himself the excellent work that is carried. It is really impactful research meeting societal challenges, which is so important to all of us.

It is incongruous that at a time we are setting up the maritime area regulatory authority, MARA, to deal with consents and licences around offshore wind, we have a world-class entity called MaREI doing world-class research on offshore wind. The science has moved ahead of implementation on the ground, on the seabed or floating on the water. What I mean is that while we are doing excellent research here, we need MARA to issue those consents when it is created in order that the excellent research on wind turbines and offshore wind can lead to a throughput of projects to deal with our future energy needs. We can be concentrating on the excellence of science in Ireland but if it does not have the impact on the island of Ireland or off our shores and if there is not expeditious connectivity with industry, the gap will need to be plugged. If the Minister visits Cork, he should talk to the people in MaREI and he will see the potential.

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