John Deasy (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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Question 232: To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Innovation the number of companies in Waterford city and county receiving funding from Science Foundation Ireland in each of the past five years and to date in 2010; the number of jobs supported by this funding in each of those years; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [47545/10]

Conor Lenihan (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)
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Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) was the agency established by Government in 2000 to support oriented basic research in strategic areas to support the needs of Irish enterprise. Specifically, SFI invests in academic researchers and research teams who are most likely to generate new knowledge, leading-edge technologies and competitive enterprises in the fields of science and engineering underpinning Biotechnology, Information and Communications Technology and Sustainable Energy/Energy Efficient Technologies.

All SFI awards are made to designated higher education institutions in Ireland and, while the outputs from this research are likely to have economic impact, SFI does not provide funding directly to industry. The SFI objective is to build the world-class human capital in scientific research and to work closely with other state agencies such as IDA Ireland, Enterprise Ireland, Forfás, the Higher Education Authority and the Health Research Board amongst others, in building new sources of competitive advantage for Irish enterprise. The SFI contribution greatly assists Ireland's efforts to become one of the world's most renowned locations for knowledge-based enterprise with a view to sustaining our competitiveness in the long-term.

Specifically in relation to the Waterford region, SFI has awarded over €12 million to Waterford Institute of Technology and this funding covers nine top-class research projects. It includes an award of almost €6 million for the Federated, Autonomic Management of End-to-end Communication Services (FAME) SRC led by Professor William Donnelly. The FAME SRC actively collaborates with a number of multinational companies such as Hewlett Packard, Alcatel-Lucent, Ericsson, IBM, Telefonica R&D and Cisco Systems who support significant employment numbers in Ireland.

Like other SFI funded research centres, the FAME SRC also acts as a selling point for IDA Ireland in maintaining, and attracting, multinational companies to the region, and to Ireland in general.