Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will address my amendments in this group. The points made by Senator Clonan are important, in terms of best practice in respect of intellectual freedom, parity of esteem between areas and the other principles around support for foundational research, which he emphasised.

The Senator mentioned his research in respect of the armed forces. There is a key ethical question which needs to be addressed, and I may bring forward amendments on Report Stage to address it. I refer to how core ethics relate to a research body, without compromising academic and intellectual freedom. There may be certain ethical questions that will need to be asked and addressed in terms of research that may be funded through this research and innovation process. As has been mentioned, it will be responsible for a huge volume of research.

I attended a meeting of the education committee today. Luckily, at this point something which is very worrying is still just a proposal. I refer to the proposal regarding European Horizon funding, which has an explicitly civilian focus, and the European Defence Fund, which has a military focus. They are separate areas of research and have separate strands of funding at research level for very good reasons. There are attempts at European level to merge the two and create a situation whereby military expenditure, research and innovation would be able to access, draw from and draw away research funding from other areas by being able to draw on Horizon funding. When we discussed this with the Department, we did not get clarity that Ireland will be explicitly clear on its position. There are currently three options on the table in Europe. The first is to keep a civilian focus for Horizon funding and a separate military focus for the European Defence Fund. The second and third options involve some form of merger of or overlap between the two.It is going to be really important that Ireland is explicitly clear that Horizon funding must remain for civilian purposes. When we spoke to officials from the Department about it today, they emphasised that whatever happens, no researchers will be obliged to apply for that research. We need to be clear, however. They almost put it back to the idea that research practice on the ground might address it rather than us addressing it by inputting at EU level. We need, therefore, to be really clear that this research and innovation body will not be participating in that kind of muddying of the line between civilian and military purposes and will not be facilitating or funding that. That is a key area of ethics that will need to be addressed again. It was not an issue we needed to be concerned about when the Bill was first drafted, but it is one that is actually coming into focus now and that may need to be addressed. I will be coming back to this. It was appropriate that Senator Clonan mentioned how important ethical applications are, especially in very sensitive and high stakes areas such as military action.

My amendments are quite brief in respect of this. Amendment No. 34 seeks to amend section 8 by inserting a new object for the agency. It is a similar point that has been made regarding the importance of "parity of esteem between fields of activity and disciplines with regard to the research and innovation opportunities available to them, and in the ongoing undertaking of that research and innovation”. It is no coincidence that myself and Senator Clonan have very similar amendments here.

This was one of the core issues identified during pre-legislative scrutiny of the Bill. The pre-legislative scrutiny report explicitly stated that the legislation should include a clear blueprint on how parity of esteem can be achieved between academic disciplines, forms of research - that includes that question of foundation versus applied research - and researchers themselves. The Oireachtas Library and Research Service, in its digest for the Bill, stated that it is not clear how the Bill, as initiated, will have the effect of placing arts, humanities and social science research on a "statutory footing". The Department offered a suggestion that there are difficulties in directly referencing parity of esteem within the text.

I would like the Minister of State in replying to us on this grouping to talk us through what the difficulties are in referencing parity of esteem. If there are such difficulties, what measures will be taken? Again, this is what the pre-legislative scrutiny called for. It was highlighted as the big gap in the Bill's digest. It has been highlighted by Senator Clonan and me. Crucially, and I am not going to list all the other academics from National University of Ireland, NUI, universities in the letter Senator Clonan referenced, it has been mentioned by academics and researchers from right across third level institutions and, indeed, not just third level institutions. The importance of some measure that delivers either explicit parity of esteem or other mechanisms that will allow for assurances that arts, humanities and social sciences research will not end up in second place or in a lesser place in terms of how they are addressed in the Bill has been highlighted. Therefore, the Minister of State might address how he plans to approach this, what his thinking is with regard to it and if he could specifically talk to that question of the parity of esteem language.