Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will come back on the question of who the agency consults and the corporate plan. I will probably bring further amendments to that section on Report Stage. I urge that the Department consider or review this because the logic does not stand up. In emphasising the word "innovation", it is as if it is against innovation to mention there are other things besides the corporate or private sector. Innovation has often been public innovation. Public funding drove much of the innovation in respect of vaccines and led to the foundation of most of the computing advances we have seen. Public innovation and innovation for the public good are crucial. With respect to Enterprise Ireland and the IDA, while they do important work, they have a remit and mandate. That is fine, but that remit and mandate is industrial development and cultivation of enterprise.

The argument is that the Health Research Board sits underneath a different Department; however, Enterprise Ireland and the IDA also sit under a different Department. The Health Research Board may well be co-funding important research that comes through. It is not enough to have the Health Research Board, Environmental Protection Agency and so forth downstream in the partnerships while the IDA and Enterprise Ireland are upfront in the five-year plan. That is the important bit. If they are in the room, through no fault of their own they will focus on their remit and ask where is the potential for enterprise, which is not analogous with innovation. One of the most enterprising things people often do is buy up innovation that is taking place and put it on a dusty shelf so it is not used and a monopoly is maintained. That is one of the major things we have seen from the corporate sector. That is a form of enterprise but it is not conducive to innovation. They do not necessarily map onto each other. Sometimes enterprise and innovation are used as if they are interchangeable but they can be at cross-purposes.

I will introduce more amendments on that and it would be useful if the Minister of State were to look at it. I could suggest loads of people. I suggest ICTU but I understand the Minister of State is not accepting that amendment. Looking at the partnerships outlined in the Bill and the further partnerships I have proposed, maybe some of them should also be named as having an input in the preparation of the five-year corporate plan. There would be consistency in that and it would go some way towards signalling the parity of esteem we have heard about. It would be an important gesture.

The cogent points made by Senator Dolan have, if anything, underscored the importance of having wider consultation at the point of corporate plan preparation.