Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I would like to address amendment No. 2, which relates to the interpretation section of the Bill., amendments Nos. 10 and 11, which address the objects of the agency, and amendments Nos. 16 and 17, which relate to section 35 of the Bill on schemes for funding of research and innovation.

As for amendment No. 2, submitted by Senators Clonan and Craughwell, parity of esteem is not just between disciplines or between discipline groupings like science, technology, engineering and mathematics and arts, humanities and social sciences. We need parity of esteem across all types of research from frontier and basic research to applied research. These are interdependent and complementary. We need to be funding high-quality frontier and basic research now to ensure a pipeline of applied research for the next ten or 20 years. We also need to have parity of esteem for all career stages from PhD and post-doctoral early career research to established researchers who have the experience and expertise to lead on larger-scale projects. We need to support mutually respectful and supportive engagements, with senior researchers being encouraged to support the skills development of the junior researchers on teams they are leading.

For amendments Nos. 10 and 11, parity of esteem is a core and vital principle and was a key consideration throughout the drafting process. Parity of esteem underpins all the provisions within the Bill itself and the planning of the new agency. The Irish Statute Book has a requirement for clear, concise and actionable language. There is a requirement for domestic legislation to maintain the clarity and integrity of the statute. The proposed amendments are less inclusive than the broad enabling provision already at section 8(b) "to support the undertaking of research and innovation in all fields of activity and disciplines by researchers with different levels of knowledge, experience and specialist skills in such fields or disciplines", which captures the policy intention of all disciplines, all areas, all types and all career stages of researchers and innovation. The proposed amendments omit this vital distinction that parity of esteem and balance need to be across career stages, as well as disciplines or research areas, which the existing provision includes more fully. For this reason, we do not propose to accept the amendments.

For amendments Nos. 16 and 17, the funding section of the Bill has been precisely engineered to require that the funding decisions are attached to the high-level principles in section 8 and to the remit of the agency in the functions at section 9. The policy intention is broader than what is proposed here by the Senators and the balance we are seeking is more finessed. Parity of esteem has been a core principle throughout the drafting process and underpins all provisions within the Bill. For the first time, arts, humanities and social sciences funding will be on a statutory basis, meaning that should Senators pass this legislation, arts, humanities and social sciences researchers will be able to lead projects as principal investigators, which they are currently unable to do under existing Science Foundation Ireland, SFI, legislation. I highlight the significance of this provision to Senators. The Department has an absolute commitment to parity of esteem under the Impact 2030 strategy. We need all disciplines, all types of research and all career stages working collaboratively together across a cohesive national research and innovation ecosystem to enable effective engagement, optimise resources and avoid duplication and get the best possible outcomes for Ireland. The agency is also required to "promote and support the contribution made by research and innovation to economic, social, cultural and environmental development and sustainability in the State" through economic development but also social and cultural and environmental progress. There is no one concept here being elevated above the others. That is, in fact, parity. Section 37 also requires a CEO to ensure the agency is delivering on its objectives and functions and on the objectives, outputs and related strategies in the corporate plan and the proposed activities and performance targets related to those activities in the annual plan. As such, there is a clear and existing requirement on the agency to ensure that it is supporting researchers across all disciplines. We do not, therefore, propose to accept that amendment either.

With regard to ring-fenced funding and quotas, the idea for an arts, humanities and social sciences council had been included in the heads of the Bill. However, when we went out to the stakeholders, they were opposed to the idea of being hived off or separate. They viewed it as being put on a junior table and not being included in the real business of the agency proper or being where the real decisions get made. There has been similar feedback around funding. We do not want to hive off any amount of money and say that is the pot for arts, humanities and social sciences. We will not be introducing ring-fencing or quotas. Competitive funding decisions will be based on the standard and quality of the research and how the proposals intend to have an economic, social, cultural and environmental development and sustainability impact. This is clearly defined in the Bill. All principles and research areas can compete for funding calls when the agency will be running. If the top five best applications are arts, humanities and social sciences, we do not want it to be in a position where the agency can only take one or two because it can only allocate a small pot of ring-fenced funding to these disciplines. This would be further complicated by how these programmes operate where we can often have multidisciplinary teams.Are we going to say an arts, humanity and social science principal investigator leading a team means funding will come from a limited arts, humanity and social science quota, even if the rest of the team are STEM researchers? We are not accepting the amendments.