Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State. I hate to be the one to put a bit of a damper on things with my comments and hope I am wrong. For the first two years of Horizon 2020 I understand that €15 billion will be laid aside. The Seventh Framework Programme had nearly €11 billion in 2013 which did not include funding for a competitiveness and innovation framework but that is now included as part of Horizon 2020. Why was a more aggressive approach not taken when it came to deriving funding for this programme? What does that tell us about innovation as a driver of the economy in the European context? Funding seems to have been reduced which, to my mind, is an austerity approach.