Paschal Donohoe (Fine Gael)

Most Members have focused on intellectual property protection and the recent Charleton judgment which affects the music industry. I want to focus on the role intellectual property rights can play in creating the smart economy.

The single best document the Government ever produced was the innovation taskforce report, Building Ireland's Smart Economy – A Framework for Sustainable Economic Renewal. It contains half a dozen recommendations on intellectual property rights, the role of third and fourth level sectors in the economy and what can be done to deliver better access to them for consistent intellectual property protocols and policies so they can better commercialise innovation.

Neil Leyden, winner of the Your Country, Your Call competition, made an exceptional proposal for an international digital services centre. That is all about trying to put infrastructure in place, some of which will include resolving the issue to which the Minister of State is about to refer. We already have the companies but Ireland should put together the infrastructure and location to become the best in the world at distributing digital content to everybody else. That detailed proposal was recognised by the President and Dr. McAleese. It is a brilliant idea and in a future debate I would like to hear the Government's views on how we can support this concept. It represents a big part of the future of what intellectual property is and how our country can benefit from it.