Senator Malcolm Byrne:

I appreciate that, although it was sort of identifiable who it was. I think that was very unfair. A lot of good work has been done by the research agencies up to now but we have to think bigger about this. Why was the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science set up in the first place? It was not to be an administrative Department. It was about looking at some of the big-picture challenges that we face as a society and how we are going to respond to them. This is why I am respectfully opposing this amendment. How we will judge that agency, and, as a society, how the wider citizenry will judge it, is on whether it is coming up with great ideas on products and services that will transform all of our lives for the better and solve some of the big global challenges that we face.

That does not mean we will be doing that by measuring whether we have allocated funding into distinctive and particular pots to make sure that everybody gets their necessary piece. That said, it is important that we take proposals from as wide a variety of backgrounds as possible. I recall initiatives in Trinity College a number of years ago where to solve global heart problems, they used to bring those who were engaged in heart surgery together with philosophers and people who specialise in romantic poetry. That kind of thinking should certainly be encouraged.

These are the objectives around the research agency. We have to think big. We have to look not at how it allocates funding but at whether it solves global problems. This is particularly the case in the context of some of the criticisms that are often levelled against public services in Ireland, namely, that we too often measure by inputs and how much money we put into particular pots. It makes far more sense that we look at the outcomes and how it is making our lives better. That is why I respectfully oppose this amendment.