Aisling Dolan (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate Katalin Karikó from Hungary and Drew Wiseman from the US who won the Nobel Prize for medicine for their work on the mRNA vaccines.I want to speak a little about the story behind this and about these two researchers who moved to the US and who fought for funding. They then worked at BioNTech SE. BioNTech SE is a couple from Türkiye who moved to Germany and were first-generation migrants. They studied, did research and were able to develop BioNTech SE. They then worked with Pfizer to develop the vaccine we now see today.

One should look at the international nature of where all of these researchers have come from, which we see in Ireland across all of our universities, and at how international so many researchers who come and work here are. This is the same as with so many of our researchers who go to work abroad. Investment in research and excellence, these chance encounters, and the opportunities scientists have in new countries, all point to researchers who never gave up.

Dr. Karikó did an interview with the Nobel Prize organisation, I believe, yesterday and spoke about how she was persistent all the time. She never gave up on this idea of mRNA even though she could not get funding in the university or in the United States, but she never give up. She was totally dogged in her determination that success lay at the end of the rainbow. As a result of this and what she has done, we have seen this Nobel Prize result today.

I would also like to highlight that Ireland, with Science Foundation Ireland, is fourth in immunology. Our researchers won €85 million from Horizon Europe which is recorded in the 2022 annual report that has just been issued. I also want to point out that as spokesperson on innovation and research, investment in academia is crucial. It is not just academia but it is investment in start-ups coming out of campuses, venture capital to do clinical trials and commercialisation. All of these are parts of the puzzle that we, in Ireland, have to be able to deliver in order to have impact with research. I thank the Cathaoirleach so much for this speaking time.