Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We all understand the importance of the issue we are dealing with as regards patents. I am fairly sure I will mispronounce that word a number of times before the end, so I apologise in advance. The fact is that this is quite complex for many people. It is going to be incredibly technical. We all know the issues that have existed with referendums for a long time and from time to time, spurious arguments have been made, sometimes refuted and sometimes not so well refuted. We will need to make sure that due diligence is carried out in that regard. In fairness, as Deputy Quinlivan said, an information pack needs to be provided so that when people ask questions, we can at least give them a straightforward answer.

While accepting that we are supporting this legislation, obviously, we have not seen the wording. We will need to see the wording before a final decision can be made. I think people realise the whole idea around the unitary patent system and the Unified Patent Court in the sense of streamlining this idea across Europe with regard to patents. Deputy O'Reilly said it has been quite a long journey since 1973. Even though we may be dealing with this in a very short timeframe, there was probably a longer run-in time in which we probably could have addressed this. There is no "probably" about it; we could have addressed this. If we are talking about this across the board, we know the legal framework and the whole idea that it needs to be simplistic. We need to make sure that SMEs, individual developers or those who are involved in innovation have reasonable access to this system. Of course, it makes more sense that we do not have to fight this across every state in Europe. We would like to think at some point, if we are to join up, we would seek that even more countries throughout the European Union would join. Then, we need to have a better set of rules and regulations around the patent system across the board.

We all know that people - when I say "people", I mean big corporations - have been able to use holding patents, which have held back development and innovation and, in some cases, held companies that are developing really breathtaking technology back from getting off the ground. However, the fact is that they were held up in court proceedings by Big Brother, which had far greater resources. That is the wider issue. We have to address something. Alongside dealing with this particular issue, we have to talk about technology and innovation across the board. We know that Ireland has particularly benefited from being an IT and communications hub. We know all the issues that brings. We know about cybersecurity. We know about the possible threat and the particular attack on the Department of Foreign Affairs, DFA. We know we need to be ever vigilant. We need to ensure we have the capacity. It was somewhat positive to see the National Cyber Security Centre, NCSC, out in front of this issue. We need to make sure it and the other parts of our IT defence apparatus have all the resources that are absolutely required in that regard.

If we are talking about referendums and elections, we know the whole issue we are dealing with now where disinformation meets AI and bad actors of all sorts, both organised and disorganised, and the issues with weaponised algorithms. A number of committees have met in the last while with both Coimisiún na Meán and the Electoral Commission and there are some positives here. A number of us have also met with representatives from the tech sector but I have yet to see the solution that is out there regarding those threats we see in all those players that are able to use, as I say, these weaponised algorithms and new technologies. We are up against it, particularly if we are talking about the entire sphere of elections.

There is a need for investment and facilitation. I spoke about the tech sector and the great advantages we have had but we have also had a certain element of kickback. It is only in the past few days that Deputy Nash and I have spoken to the Minister of State about the issues with PayPal. We obviously hope the numbers will be a lot less than what is in the public domain and that those workers who have obviously given great service are provided with a worthwhile package and whatever facilitation can be done to help them into other employment. Deputy Nash and I spoke as well about the issues in Glen Dimplex. While we know that is a reorientation of a business and of an industry and it might mean pain for some people in the short term, we would like that to be as limited as possible and hope that the State would play its part. The good news on this is that the locations in both Dunleer and Newry are obviously safe. There is probably a need across the board for a huge level of reorientation in relation to businesses.

From a European point of view, we also have a particular issue around European directives. There is the fine under the video sharing directive that is somewhat late. We probably need to make sure we have our due diligence done and our act together on that particularly. If I am talking about the tech sector, we need to make an assessment of the changes that are happening at the minute. We need to make sure we engage with the likes of the Regional Development Centre in DkIT, which has involved itself in a huge amount of innovation and engaged with a huge level of stakeholders cross-Border and across industry, whether medtech or anything else, in producing companies that are doing real business. That level of innovation has to be put in place. We cannot just rely on big players and FDI. We need to make sure that while we have them we get the benefits of them. The one good piece of news among all that negative was of Pentagon Technologies in Dundalk with 100 new jobs to be provided over the next number of years in the semi-conductor industry. However, I would put it back to the Minister of State that alongside protecting workers rights and those other issues I raised, we really need to look at some sort of review across the board for the tech sector looking into where the dangers and the difficulties are and where we can get our best bang for buck from innovation and job creation into the future.

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