asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if the National Software Centre is being closed down because of cuts in Government funding; if he was consulted in any way before the board of the centre took the decision to recommend closure; and the implications of this for the Government strategy to develop an international services sector here creating 3,000 jobs as outlined in paragraph 28 of the Programme for National Recovery.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - National Software Centre.
36.
The decision by the Industrial Development Authority to close the National Software Centre, was not due to the reasons suggested in the question. I am informed that it was based on a number of criteria, including the view that the income of the centre would not be sufficient to sustain its operations.
I was advised by the Authority of their decision. There was no requirement that I be consulted in advance.
In the light of that decision I have been keen to ensure that the provision of services and support by State agencies leaves no gap in the range of aids and assistance needed for the development of the software services sector. In this connection services from the IDA and CTT will be available to firms in order to fill such gaps but I am concerned also that there should be a clearly identifiable focus for co-ordinating State services for the industry. To this end I have asked my Department and the Industrial Development Authority to examine the form and organisation of institutional support that will be required for the sector for the future.
The existing State services for the sector include the full range of incentives available to exporting service companies under the IDA's international services programme. CTT's export marketing services are also available to the sector and indeed CTT have made organisational arrangements which are specific to the software area.
In addition the Government's Trading House initiative is particularly relevant to the export of software by relatively small Irish software firms. One of the first trading houses to receive a licence from my Department will operate in the software sector thus providing increased export opportunities.
Is the Minister aware that increasingly the investment in the electronics industry is in the software end of the business rather than in the hardware? In view of that, how can he accept that the only national centre of excellence in software, the National Software Centre, is being closed down while the State continues to invest substantial funds in the National Micro Electronics Research Centre which is engaged in the hardware end of the business? Would he not agree that the State should be giving an equal emphasis in terms of the State support — if it is to give any support at all — to the software end as it is giving to the hardware end already each year?
I accept what the Deputy is saying in relation to the focus and aid to be given to the software sector and he can rest assured it will be given not just equal but even better treatment. However, it was not in the best interest of anybody to continue the Irish Software Centre, which had its chance with no possibility of becoming viable over the next three years. In view of the developments in the software centre I have been looking, through CTT, at all the ways and means to make sure that the software sector is fully supported because I see a greater potential for jobs there than in many other sectors.
I want to deal with Private Notice Questions. A very brief question.
Is it not the essence of pre-competitive research that it will not be viable in a strictly commercial sense and is it not the case that the Minister accepts that in regard to the National Micro Electronics Research Centre? Why, therefore, does he not accept it in regard to the National Software Centre?
I have said the IDA took a decision to close it. I did not have to be consulted beforehand but even if I had I would agree fully with their decision in relation to it.
Why?
It was set up as a subsidiary of the IDA. The Deputy was there himself. It got a mandate, a target and objectives. It did not achieve them and there was no possibility of it becoming even self-sufficient, which was one of the objectives the Deputy set for it. It had not a hope of breaking even in three years' time.
(Interruptions.)
The whole thing shut down within a few months of the new board being established.
That is the end of the questions concerned.