Maeve O'Connell (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)

Although I trained as a lawyer, science has always been part of my life. My mother was a dentist and my father was an engineer. They encouraged us to watch every television show on science. They subscribed to the New Scientist magazine and the National Geographic to encourage a love of science in us. My sister got the bug and she went on to get her PhD in chemistry. She and her husband have worked very successfully in biotech and pharma both here and abroad over the past number of years. When we travelled, we also visited science museums and I continue that tradition to this very day. I was in Milan a couple of weeks ago and the one museum I took time to visit was the Leonardo da Vinci science museum and I very much enjoyed my visit. Establishing and maintaining a science museum is challenging. The big science museums in Europe have been built over decades. They have received major donations. The museum in Milan had trams, trains, airplanes, rockets, helicopters and ships on display, all of which had been donated over the years. The collection was built up over the years through donations from private benefactors, sponsors for exhibits and some state support.

The challenge for a science museum is that it requires regular updates, which are costly. What is cutting-edge today will be a museum piece tomorrow. I have seen versions of my older mobile phones in museums and it does make me feel that I am ageing somewhat. It is an example of how exhibits have to be constantly updated. They have to be updated as new technology emerges. For example, most science museums are only now starting to develop their AI areas and upgrading their existing displays to take into account the impact artificial intelligence is having on existing technologies.

In Ireland, we have the knowledge of how challenging it is to run a science centre. In 2008, the Science Gallery opened in Trinity College Dublin and I visited multiple times. It put on fantastic exhibits. It was established with private sponsors from the science and tech industries from here and abroad. It was also supported by some public investment. However, after struggling through Covid-19, it closed in 2022 due a failure to find a lack of sustainable, ongoing funding.

In my constituency of Dublin Rathdown, the Explorium science centre opened in 2018, just before Covid-19. Despite having to close almost immediately after opening, it has survived. It demonstrates the public demand, support and interest in educational science. It is located in the foothills of the Dublin Mountains and has an impressive 10,000 sq. m. footprint with scope for expansion. I have visited Explorium and have seen how many schools take the opportunity to visit it. It is a science education day for students but because they enjoy the experience so much, many come back with their friends and family. It also has a resource for children with autism, which is regularly used with people just dropping. It has a fully resourced sensory space. This is also a valuable educational tool for everyone to understand the challenges that certain students and children have.

There is also a third potential science museum for the city centre, which has been in the planning since 2003. This has already had €4.2 million of taxpayers' funds invested in it but we still do not have a museum. Cost overruns and delays have been the subject of many media reports, including a "Prime Time" programme. The Comptroller and Auditor General has also written several reports on it. The most recent one highlighted a number of serious concerns with the ongoing project, including a lack of governance and in particular a lack of a Department sponsor, which may have contributed to the delays and cost overruns.

The Explorium in the foothills of the Dublin Mountains has shown that it possible to create and operate a science centre that caters to all ages. Its large, open site also provides scope for expansion, perhaps to include agriscience, especially with a link to the UCD school of veterinary medicine, which is close by, and Airfield, the city farm. However, having two competing museums so close to each other would threaten the viability of both. The closure of the Science Gallery demonstrates the challenge of the ongoing operating costs of science museums.

Museums in Europe like the Leonardo da Vinci Museum of Science and Technology in Milan and the Deutsches Museum in Munich show the key role of private investment and ongoing sponsorship, which are essential. It is also critical that we consider the value for money of investing further in yet another science museum in Dublin.

In the spirit of Science Week, I want to ask the Minister of State to urge the Department to take on a sponsorship role in the development of a national science centre for Dublin. By working together with Explorium and the Irish Children's Museum Company Limited, the sponsors of the proposed city centre site, there is potential to create a viable, sustainable and world-class science centre for Ireland. Of course, any museum of this scale would require some State support. We must get something effective from the millions of euro we have already invested in a science museum. The operators of Explorium have shown that they can operate a science museum successfully in Ireland. They have demonstrated that they understand the market, demand and opportunities. They have also created international connections with other science museums as they regularly take on board some of the travelling exhibits. The board of the Irish Children's Museum Company Limited obviously brings its scientific expertise, passion and determination.

Much has been written and spoken recently about the need to deliver on projects, to stop all of the project planning and to actually get projects built. We need to take leadership of the science museum project and get delivery. It is important that the Department of further and higher education take the lead on this. We want to encourage that spark in children and young people and encourage their early interest in science, to make science accessible and exciting to them. These early encounters with science are critical. They will encourage children to view STEM subjects as exciting, to take them up in school and to pursue a scientific career or even just tech-related hobbies, thus providing a level of support for and contribution to the knowledge economy that we so urgently need to maintain. By working with the current stakeholders and operators of science museums here in Ireland and harnessing their expertise, we could develop an attractive, exciting, accessible and affordable world-class science centre for Ireland. Today, during Science Week, I ask that the Minister of State and her Department take the lead on delivering on this potential and develop a world-class science centre for Ireland.

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