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

I have a number of amendments in this grouping. Some of the discussion has been had. Amendment No. 15 proposes that "no fewer than six ordinary members of the Board shall have experience and expertise in carrying out research". We are seeking to specify that a majority of the board, as a minimum, would be people with expertise and experience in research. This is a reasonable demand.

I draw the Minister's attention to the European Research Council, which is absolutely dominated by researchers, academics and so on. Every discipline is represented and there are no technocrats, for want of a better word. I do not mean that pejoratively. All academic disciplines are represented, including geography, history, biochemistry - I see our own Luke O'Neill is there - mathematics, physics, linguistics, law, psychology and so on. They are the people who run the council. However, the only field the Minister has specified is enterprise. I am interested to know why that is.

This rings alarm bells for me. Research should not become the slave of profit-driven industry. I have a deep concern that this can and, all too often does, happen. That is because the people with the big money and resources, whom governments decide are essential for the economy and so on, start dictating the type of research that is done and what is considered important in research. It becomes all about what is considered profitable in the short term. It becomes blue-chip research instead of blue-sky research. The best of science and research happens where there are no restraints of that sort and where people can delve into the world we live in and dream of things that do not yet exist.

The other amendment I put forward is important in ensuring there is a diverse expertise. I propose in amendment No. 18 that there should be representation on the board from a "wide variety of academic disciplines and fields of research", which is very important. Historically, the arts were the poor relation of research, third-level funding and so on because they were not considered to be as important economically. However, the fact is if people had not written science fiction, we probably would not have the mobile phone. It is often through artists imagining things that do not exist but could exist that we later see those things being developed and put into practice by engineers, mathematicians and scientists. An artistic dimension that is not very narrowly commercially focused or concerned with solving what appears to be an immediately important problem is critical for the development of human society. Taking linguistics as an example, without human communication, none of the industry and science that has been developed would exist.

The temptation to see some fields as less important because they are not seen to have an immediate economic return or benefit for the economy is very short-sighted. In fact, in the end, it is a big mistake even from an economic point of view. The undervaluing of the arts in this country is a massive economic mistake. Although I hate to justify the arts in terms of economics in any event, because they should be valued in and of themselves, our underinvestment in that area is a huge economic mistake. It has very serious economic and financial consequences for the many artists who live in poverty but, in addition, it is to the detriment of our economy. I am almost reluctant to say that because these matters should not be valued in narrowly economic terms. It is critical that in funding research, there should be no hierarchy, with what industry and the economy considers important dictating what is at the top and, somewhere down the pecking order, we find the arts, humanities and blue-sky research that does not seem immediately beneficial to some industrial enterprise or strategy.

That is the logic of the amendments I am putting forward. They are not dissimilar to what Deputy Farrell is putting forward. We discussed similar proposals on Committee Stage. As I said, the proposals are reflective of the make-up and structure of the European Research Council. I am not sure why the Minister wants to depart from that. What we are proposing is better.

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