Malcolm Byrne (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit. The Minister of State will be aware that modern Irish economic policy has been based on two things, namely, tax and talent. The emphasis on tax has become less important in recent times. Ireland is a talent-driven economy and society. We know the key economic and social driver for this country into the future is investment in talent. In fact the reason we set up the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science was a recognition that this was not just about breaking away from the Department of Education to form a new administrative Department, it was about preparing this country for the opportunities and challenges of the 21st century.

The issue I raise today is about talent and those incredibly talented researchers within our higher education institutions and other research institutes. There are broader questions around the stipend and the level of grant support to individual PhD students. The Government has also embarked on addressing some of the shortfalls in core funding for universities, and there are also the big grants that come from Science Foundation Ireland, SFI. I want to talk about the basic tools researchers need to carry out their work in our universities. Quite frankly, the tools are not there. When the Irish Universities Association carried out an audit of research equipment last summer in member universities around the country, it found that 30% of the equipment being used by researchers was more than 15 years old, and 52% of the research equipment was more than ten years old. If the Minister of State thinks about his job and the equipment he is using, if the mobile phone in front of him was more than ten years old it would be impossible to try to do our work.

I will give one specific example of a case in a university.In 2011, an automated microscope was purchased for the sum of €242,000 as part of an EU-wide security project that was looking at individuals' exposure to radioactivity after an accident. It is a very useful piece of equipment. It allows for an experiment to be carried out by a PhD student, or otherwise, in 17 minutes. If the equipment was not there it could take them, using traditional methods, up to five days. That was 2011, we are now 12 years later and they are still relying on that equipment. There are 45 PhD students and a number of other researchers who are relying on it. It was used for more than 1,200 hours last year. If that piece of equipment breaks down, rather than taking them 17 minutes to conduct the experiment it will take them five days. There are countless other examples I can use.

Given what is happening there is a danger we will lose some of our top talent to other countries within the European Union and more widely, simply because the other universities have the basic equipment for those researchers to carry out their research. When Irish companies look to partner with Irish universities, the universities cannot carry out the experiment or the work as quickly as universities in other countries. It is not that the talent is not there, because we have extraordinary talent; it is just that the basic equipment is not there. With the research, it is akin to asking the best baker in the country to make a cake but we ration their supplies to flour and eggs and expect them to work with an oven that regularly breaks down. If we are going to create the best little country in the world in which to be creative, innovative and imaginative and to be a researcher, we must invest in basic core equipment. As part of the Government's priority for the budget, I ask the Minister of State to set out that this would be the case and that we invest in core research equipment.