Aisling Dolan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I was a contract researcher working on the Horizon 2020 programme. An incredible thing about Ireland and our third level system is the amount of funding we have been able to draw down due to the excellence of our principal investigators, PIs, and researchers. They draw awards from the Exchequer, through Science Foundation Ireland, the Irish Research Council, the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland, Teagasc and all our national funding agencies. They also draw down funding at an international level because our researchers are competing at that international level. We are now able to ensure that we offer more PhD and post-doctoral posts. We are training more people at third level. This is possible because of the excellence and ability to draw down funding, including from Horizon Europe, the National Science Foundation, and the National Institutes of Health, NIH. We have researchers who are winning that funding in their own right. That funding is available for three or four years. When this funding is garnered through an institution, one can then take on researchers, post-doctoral staff, PhD and masters students. They are able to gain experience through an institution. We need to ensure with this Higher Education Authority Bill that researchers working on these awards have their full rights when working in an institution. It is incredible to see the increase in the number of researchers. We need to ensure that contract researchers in higher education institutes and universities have full rights.