Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The European Research Council has it right and the Government has it wrong, to put it simply. In driving the sort of research agency we want, it should not be about technocrats, for want of a better word. I just do not think it should be. The technocrats should be subservient to the people who have experience, knowledge and are engaged in the research, in whatever field it may be, the arts, humanities, science or whatever. Indeed, I worry when we get in technocrats, and we will be dealing with something else later about how we specify that the one person who has to be on the board is somebody connected to enterprise. There is no mention of arts, science, humanities, but there has to be someone from enterprise, from business. This worries me. I want to see a diversity and a cross-section of people engaged in the different disciplines as a dominant and majority force on the research council.

The people who do the research and create the knowledge are the researchers. That is who does it. Everything else is meaningless without them. Our problem is that they are treated pretty badly. They are living in poverty and below the living wage. Even with the increases the Minister has given, they are still on less than the living wage of €32,000 and on far less than some of our counterparts across Europe. The need to create good pay, conditions, environment, employment rights and so on is critical to the success of our research agency. It is not an add-on to something else. It should be hardwired into the research agency.

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