Niall Collins (Limerick County, Fianna Fail)
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222. To ask the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation her views on Ireland’s fall in the 2017 Bloomberg Innovation Index international rankings; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [3733/17]

Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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As Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, I am committed to improving Ireland’s innovation performance. While we have fallen one place on the global Bloomberg Innovation Index, it can be noted that Ireland has improved across a number of the sub-indicators that make up this index. In particular, Ireland’s productivity has climbed from 12th to 6th place and in the area of manufacturing value added our performance has risen from 7th to 2nd place. Ireland is performing well from a European perspective, with the latest European Innovation Scoreboard showing that Ireland climbed from 8th to 6th place. We are leading in Europe in the economic effects indicator, which captures economic success stemming from innovation in terms of employment, revenue and exports.

Innovation 2020, Ireland's cross-governmental strategy for Research and Development, Science and Technology, is based on a shared vision of Ireland becoming a global innovation leader, driving a strong, sustainable, high employment economy and a better society. This strategy, led by my Department, sets out a roadmap to deliver on our vision and focuses on the excellence of our research, the development of our talent and the impact of our investment. Continued implementation of Innovation 2020 will enable us to further narrow the gap with the world’s most innovative countries and drive our objective of becoming a global innovation leader.