Peter Fitzpatrick (Louth, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on Second Stage of the Research and Innovation Bill 2023 and will support its progress today. The establishment of the new agency is a key action included in Impact 2030: Ireland’s Research and Innovation Strategy and will serve as the foundation for achieving many of the strategy’s goals. The agency will help build the capacity we need for research and innovation excellence into the future. This is essential in order to ensure that Ireland has a resilient and agile research base that can make a substantive impact on national challenges and opportunities. It will also play an important role in underpinning evidence for policy and supporting Government Departments. The Bill, alongside other recent legislative and policy changes and the ongoing progress of the higher education and research system, may provide us with a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the higher education and research system to be flexible, balanced and capable of meeting national needs now and into the future.

I will address three principal themes today, namely, the composition of the board of the new agency, the need for support in developing a world-class researcher career framework and fundamental research, and the need for sufficient investment.

Regarding the composition of the board, it is very much about striking the balance. Conflict of interest is also a significant issue in that we cannot have a scenario in which people on the board have vested interests in how the funding is allocated to the sector. That is the balance to be struck. A lot is happening in Ireland in this area. We have to look holistically at the make-up of the board and we need to get a balance between national and international, corporate governance and research expertise. We need to look at the competences we need and consider a council structure within it. Having councils to advise the board and embedded within the system is something every State agency should be doing. Each should consult, on an ongoing basis and in a structured way, the community it serves.

A consistently excellent research environment and culture supported by the appropriate infrastructure is necessary to the success of the new agency. The new agency will have a crucial role to play in developing a world-class researcher career framework that will both attract and retain talent in Ireland.

The agency will work with the university, enterprise and public sectors. However, those who are actively involved in research will tell of a disjointed system in which the pay and conditions of researchers are not stable across the sector. This is an important tenet within the Bill, as those researchers, who oftentimes are carrying out PhD programmes within institutions and who can analyse the trends within our society, are themselves subject to these insecure conditions such as insecure and temporary contracts. This is something I have raised before for the public sector, especially for teachers and academic tutors. A lack of recognition of employee status deeply disadvantages them not solely when undertaking their PhDs but in years to come. A five-year period in which no PRSI contributions are made, and when relevant employment protections and rights such as maternity leave, parental leave or sick leave are denied, can lead to long-term disadvantages, not just in gaps in pension contributions but also gaps in access to other social supports. It is not only about pay, conditions and security around contracts at all stages of the research ladder and all stages of the teaching ladder. This is an opportunity to show that the Government understands the importance of proper security. Lack of security is how we lose out on frontier research and new thinking.

In a similar way, we need to encourage more students to look at career pathways that incorporate some or all of the science subjects. If we look at the OECD rankings for research and development, and at our per capita expenditure, Ireland makes half of the investment that is made in countries like Sweden, Austria and Switzerland. If we do not increase investment in research and innovation towards the strategic target of 2.5% of the domestic economy as outlined in Impact 2030, we will leave ourselves fundamentally unprepared for the digital and green transitions we must deal with in the coming two decades. We have to build on the success of the past 20 years and invest at scale in partnership with enterprise, the public service and civil society if we are to translate all of that research into tangible economic, social and environmental benefits. These outcomes are society-wide deliverables, and we need to work together. Ireland’s Government budget allocation for research and development should reach or perhaps exceed the EU average with the majority being allocated to fundamental research.

The Bill has been broadly welcomed across the sector. In this country we know the importance of research and innovation. A consistently excellent research environment and culture supported by the appropriate infrastructure is necessary to the success of the new agency. We now have new players within our tertiary education system, namely, the technological universities. However, they are curtailed in their participation in research due to the contracts the lecturers are operating under. It is a chance to get a stand-alone piece of research legislation right. The proposed Bill, alongside other recent legislative and policy changes and the ongoing progress of the higher education and research system, may provide us with a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the higher education and research system to be flexible, balanced, and capable of meeting national needs now and into the future.

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