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

It is good that we have this debate every year about the importance of science. The Government, to my mind, largely pays lip service to the importance of science but does not actually translate it in reality into backing science and encouraging those who are working in the area of science, research and development. What is my evidence for saying that? First of all, there is the plight of about 10,000 to 12,000 PhD researchers who, in recent years, have felt compelled to organise themselves into a union through the Postgraduate Workers' Organisation. Some of their demands are articulated by unions in the third level sector, like the Irish Federation of University Teachers, IFUT, who have explained about the poverty that they suffer. It is quite incredible. It is important to note that our public universities are held together by postgraduate researchers and academic staff who are on part-time contracts, effectively if-and-when contracts, living on very low pay with almost no rights as workers, in the case of PhD researchers, or literally no rights as workers. They are not recognised as workers, but they hold together our universities, research and our third level education system. Without them, we would not have those things, but we treat them in a shameful way.

Due to their campaigning, the Government was forced to raise up to, in most cases, a minimum stipend level of €25,000, but that is still minimum wage for people who are highly educated and supposed to be the cutting edge. They are the basis on which we educate our young people, give them third level education and engage in their research that really counts, but they live on minimum wage. It is absolutely outrageous. That compares with our European counterparts, where you are talking more like €30,000, €40,000 and, in some cases, €50,000 for doing what are actually real jobs. We are exploiting people who do the research and science and who teach our young people in third level education. I would say that 50% of those who live in universities are living in precarity of one sort or another, or are not even recognised as workers. Then there are the barriers that we put in the way of accessing higher education more generally, most notably third level fees and fees for postgraduate degrees, all of which are barriers to people getting into higher levels of education and areas of research and innovation, which would put us at the cutting edge that we keep saying we are trying to put ourselves at. This is borne out in overall figures. The average spend in Europe in the area of research is 3%.

We spend about 1.7% to 1.9%, which is significantly lower. This is the land of saints and scholars, but there are not many saints, in my opinion, and we are definitely not looking after the scholars in this area.

Do we give money to some? The answer is “Yes”. When we say things, such as that we should get rid of postgraduate fees, give them a decent stipend, treat them as workers or get rid of third level fees, people ask where that is coming from - the socialist magic money tree? They say that Ireland could not actually do that. We cost this every year, however. To get rid of the postgraduate and mature repeating student fees would cost €100 million, to give a stipend to all PhD researchers of at least €30,000 a year would cost €225 million, and to close the funding gap and maintain the existing level of funding would cost €355 million. Anyone would think that is quite a lot of money. However, how much do we give out to the big multinational corporations in research and development grants every year? Last year, it was €1.4 billion. That was up from the previous year, when it was €1.1 billion, and up €400 million from the previous year, when it was €700 million. That is not even examined in the budget. Most people do not bother to look at tax expenditures, which are the shadow budget in this country, the shadow giveaways to the big multinationals, which are already making astronomical profits.

What are they researching? They might be researching iPhone version 15 for Bill Gates, Elon Musk or the billionaires and trillionaires to further boost their profits, which are going through the roof. That is where the money is going. It is money that should be going to the universities, to getting rid of fees for students, to postgraduate researchers and to poorly paid, precariously employed academic staff in order to boost this State’s ability to engage in cutting-edge research, put ourselves at the higher levels of education and develop our domestic economy and our own capacity. But no, we are handing it out in another massive giveaway to the billionaires of this world, who are largely located in the United States and are now the cheerleaders for Donald Trump. That is what is going on. It is just ridiculous.

We will never manage to be the country of saints, but we could do the scholars bit in a serious way if we redirected even half of what we are giving away in research and development tax reliefs to a tiny group of probably ten or 15 big multinationals. They are making so much profit that the idea they would all be running out of the country is nonsense. In any case, that is only one of the tax reliefs they are getting. They are getting enormous tax reliefs, which, again, we detail every single year in our budget submission.

Intragroup transactions are another tax expenditure and they were worth €4.4 billion last year to the same companies. They get tax breaks on the losses they make so they can carry them forward, but when they make profits, they do not pay tax the next year. This amounted to €2.4 billion last year. In total, guess how much these big multinationals get in tax breaks each year? It is €22 billion. It is flipping enormous. It is a scandal, and it is almost never discussed. Before they pay any tax, they use these tax loopholes, so they do not actually pay 12.5%, 15% or anything like it. While ordinary workers are paying 20%, 30% or 40% of their income or more, these fellows are paying 6%, 7% or 8%, and, as we know, some are paying less than 1% while making astronomical profits.

In a choice between enriching Apple, Google, Facebook and already spectacularly profitable pharmaceutical companies to research stuff that, for the most part, we do not need at all, is of little benefit to us and, in some cases, is actually doing damage to our society, would it not be better to redirect that money towards researchers and young people to access higher level education, and towards our universities to advance science, research and innovation? It is a no-brainer, but it requires putting people and our society before profit.

See this speech in context