Mary Moran (Labour)

The Minister of State is always welcome in the House and I congratulate him on his work to date. I add my voice of welcome to the Euroscience Open Forum, ESOF, 2012 coming to Dublin. It is an exciting time. As the Minister of State mentioned, it is a boost and an opportunity for Ireland, as hosting it gives us substantial prestige. That nine out of the world's top ten pharmaceutical companies and 11 out of its top 12 medical technology companies are based in Ireland shows how serious we are in this field.

ESOF 2012 will take place on 11 to 15 July during the school holidays. I have a teaching background. Have all schools been encouraged to take their students to the forum or advised them to attend? Were it to be held during the school term, busloads of students would attend. I hope they will be notified before the holidays rather than in September. Public relations can sometimes be important. Youth groups love to bring people to events such as this, but only if they know about them.

When I attended school, science as a subject was only offered to the top stream. Subjects were labelled depending on one's ability. Many students believe that science is a difficult subject. I brought some of my classes to the W5 science museum in Belfast. It always provides a fantastic experience and shows a different side of science. Science was one of my most difficult subjects in school and I went on to study music. Senator Barrett stated it was a question of crossing the divide, but I always avoided chemistry, physics and so on. I had a patient teacher. After I finished my music degree, I studied for a masters in music technology. Only then did I appreciate the link between music and the sciences, particularly in terms of psycho-acoustics. For the first time, I learned the real science behind the music. W5 houses an interactive harp that one plays by using laser beams.

There is fantastic assistive technology for the disabled, and the scientific world provides advantages for children or stroke-afflicted adults who have no voice, in that they are afforded the opportunity to communicate audibly through, for example, Soundbeam.

We have all attended school open days where food colouring changed mixtures and so on. We want to encourage science in this way. ESOF is a fantastic opportunity to do so, but let us get the word out there. We should all register. We could publish press releases and attract young people to the forum.