Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire as sin. I am glad we are discussing the Bill in the Dáil today and I am also glad to see so many Members have indicated they want to participate in this particular discussion. As the Minister mentioned, I also look forward in the coming weeks to having that collaboration and looking at the Bill in even greater detail because, of course, we are hoping we will see from this a new departure for promoting research and development in this State and not just looking at a reorganisation of our two existing research funding bodies. I welcome the name "Taighde Éireann". It is a lovely name. As somebody who is very interested in the Irish language, I like the fact that it has such a strong name. I also hope that this merger does not have any unintended consequences when it comes to the distribution of funding between disciplines. We have had a very strong emphasis on STEM subjects and that is something the education committee worked on in great detail. We know that science, technology, engineering and mathematics are hugely important subjects, and ones in which I am particularly interested as well, but they are also subjects that produce research, the output of which is often more easily quantifiable in monetary terms. This arises from the production of intellectual property, industrial designs, licence agreements, copyrights and so on and these are key elements of any successful economy. However, we must also recognise that research in the humanities produces output that may not have an immediately recognisable monetary value but is no less important. This research is often essential to the construction and development of society and, therefore, these must be two wings of the two birds. We need to make sure we approach research and innovation with all of this in mind. One of things some of those who are engaged in science at third level often say is that we also need to look at the trealamh - this is what happens sometimes when science is done through Irish in secondary school. In English, this is the equipment that is there to makes sure that the people who want to study sciences and progress, who have great ideas and want to contribute to society here, have the ability to use the top-class equipment. It is really important that we see that level of investment in that regard as well.

We will discuss the Revised Estimates in committee later but I think the Minister of State, Deputy Collins, is taking them rather than the Minister, Deputy Harris. I was reviewing the Revised Estimates for 2024 and some of the figures produced by the Department on the State's approach to research and innovation were quite interesting. The Department has not yet published figures for 2023 or provided a forecast for this year but I imagine that is probably due to Taighde Éireann being in the process of being established. It is worth highlighting that according to the European innovation scoreboard, our score in 2021 was 11, which then fell to six a year later. The Revised Estimates did not provide the figure for 2023 but I managed to locate this on the European Commission's website. It showed improvement last year but noted some ongoing weaknesses, which included research and development expenditures in the public sector; investment in environment-related technologies; non-research and development innovation expenditures; and enterprises providing ICT training and lifelong learning. The new Taighde Éireann body will not be able to address all these weaknesses so its establishment will need to be matched, of course, with our renewed focus within this Chamber. On the Revised Estimates, the last year for which the Department provides figures for gross expenditure on research and development is 2021 and in that year we spent as low as 1.5% as a proportion of GNI*. That is obviously lower than the expenditure of states such as Sweden, Germany, Austria, France, Belgium and so on, but it is equivalent to the likes of Greece, Poland, Hungary, Lithuania and a number of others and, therefore, we need to use this as an opportunity to state that we are taking research and development, innovation and so on seriously and put a renewed focus on it.

We have had a situation in this country for a number of years where intellectual property has been located here, which realistically has been a result of tax policy. However, that really means that the research and development was carried out elsewhere and domiciled here. What we need to look at now is upping our level of domestic expenditure because there are so many people with so many ideas as well and the Minister knows that from going around the different universities. We meet students who have exciting ideas and they see opportunities here that they wish to pursue. We need to give them everything in our power to be able to do that and make sure we have a very holistic approach. We also need to think of those who undertake this level of research and the institutions themselves that encourage this type of research. When we are looking at that and at these young people - older people too, people of all ages - who are potentially starting off in a career and looking at what they can contribute, one of those groups of people is the PhD researchers who have ideas, want to follow up on them and bring those ideas to fruition. One of the big issues for them is the rent, which is a significant overhead. I was just down in Trinity College Dublin where there was a protest about the cost of student accommodation. The message was very clear. What the students want now is reduced rents. Therefore, we need to look at the PhD researchers being included in the student renters tax credit as well. I understand that this falls under the responsibility of the Ministers, Deputies O'Brien and McGrath, but perhaps that is something the Minister, Deputy Harris, can raise with them. The tax credit in itself is not the be-all and end-all for these students who are paying extremely high rents but every little will help for them. We know that most PhD researchers struggle to support themselves.

This is something that definitely should be looked at, particularly because those PhD researchers are the type of people that we will rely on into the future, providing the leadership in that research. Unfortunately, there is the issue of the unaffordability of student accommodation. It was very clear from the report that Trinity College Dublin Students' Union just did was that they are overreliant on extremely high-cost accommodation. This is particularly the case for international students who might be coming in to do PhDs or other courses and are relying on vulture fund-owned student accommodation.

I might just touch on the continuation of the employment control framework, which means the continuation of high pupil-to-staff ratios. This is one of metrics by which Irish universities are ranked. I have a concern that it could drag our ranking down. It has also been flagged at European level that it infringes on university autonomy in addition to requiring them to continue the practice of using precarious employment contracts to try to circumvent the framework.

I am sure the Minister has seen that IFUT recently produced an excellent report that laid out in stark detail the precarious levels of employment in third level institutions, which, again, is not helping those who are trying to provide research and innovation. The survey by IFUT found that almost 40% of respondents identified as precariously employed. Precarious employment in academia means many early doctoral graduates are leaving research. If we create a situation where talented doctoral graduates are then poached by universities in other countries, we will cut the legs from under ourselves.

Finally, I want to flag the National Training Fund, which is something that is of keen interest to an awful lot of people in the sector. I have been trying to find out what is going on with the legislation underlying the fund because most informed observers seem to be clear that there is an issue where the fund is prevented from funding further training and skills. However, finding out exactly what it is is not straightforward. When it comes to the fund, the Minister's Department has a particular responsibility but the Departments of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform, and Finance are also partly responsible. However, when we table parliamentary questions, everybody seems to be pointing their fingers every which way. Perhaps the Minister could make a commitment that he is going to get to the bottom of this once and for all. Universities have been calling for a fund to help them pay for laboratory and other research consumables. At the same time, not far off €2 billion is just sitting in the National Training Fund, which then gets invested in low-yield Exchequer notes. I cannot fully understand why that is happening. I have ideas but maybe the Minister could clarify that. It is high time for a move on it.

See this speech in context