Paddy Burke (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister of State. As Senator Cassidy and other Senators said, this is a very important subject. When one asks people about intellectual property rights, they will ask what it is. Few people know what intellectual property rights is about. However, the Minister of State set it out very well. He said:

The concept of intellectual property covers a wide range of creations of the human mind from the inventions, symbols and designs used in industry to literary and artistic works such as novels, paintings and films. Over the centuries, various societies came to recognise that it was in the public interest to recognise these as being the property of the people who created them and, consequently, the wider modern concept of intellectual property rights became more widely used. Today, intellectual property rights consist of concrete protections such as patents on inventions, trademarks and industrial designs, as well as copyright on artistic works such as books, films, music and paintings.

Senator Quinn spoke about fakes and so on. It is only right that we strengthen intellectual property rights and I congratulate the Minister of State in this regard. Senator Cassidy asked an important question about where we go from here. Over the past ten years, various sections of our workforce have diminished, including our cottage industry, manufacturing industry and, to a degree, our tourism industry, although that could be rectified. We have lost heavily in regard to our manufacturing and cottage industries because our cost base has become too high.

We now talk about high-level jobs and about more funding going to research and development. I agree with Senators who said we need to invest heavily in research and development, in particular in science and mathematics. There are great opportunities here. Senator Cassidy mentioned the IDA, universities and regional technical colleges. This country is well covered with third level facilities ranging from universities to regional technical colleges and we must invest heavily in them.

When one thinks of what can be done from wave and wind energy, there is a great opening here for innovation. The Government must create jobs in this area. There is a great opening to create new models which we could test. We have access to the ocean, hills and wind. There must be opportunities.

I compliment the Minister of State. We need to invest heavily in research and development because we have lost many of our manufacturing and cottage industries. Our tourism industry can be rectified. I wish the Minister of State well.