I move:
That Seanad Éireann takes note of the Science Budget, 1980.
Science Budget, 1980: Motion.
The origins of the Science Budget so far as this country is concerned go back to the sixties. The concept of a horizontal approach to science and technology, in particular to their application to economic and social development, originally stemmed from a study on "Science and Irish Economic Development" commissioned by the Government and carried out in collaboration between an Irish team of experts and the OECD. The report on this study could be likened to an updating of the 19th century Kane Report in that it carried out a comprehensive and in-depth survey of Irish natural resources potential and, in particular, looked at the possibilities of the development of these resources by the application of science and technology.
Following the publication of this report and its acceptance by the Government, important decisions were taken covering, inter alia, the first setting up in this country of horizontal mechanisms in the science and technology area, involving in particular the establishment of the National Science Council. This council were deliberately given a mandate in general terms so that their role was very largely exploratory and directed, inter alia, towards identifying the most appropriate mechanisms which should operate on a permanent basis for the development of science and technology.
The work of the National Science Council was in this regard augmented by a country review of Ireland's science policy undertaken by the OECD. This review culminated in 1973 with recommendations for a package of mechanisms involving, inter alia, the establishment of a National Board for Science and Technology and the introduction of a Science Budget. After long discussions with Ministers and with all the institutions concerned, both formal through public fora and taking account of representations received, the establishment of the National Board for Science and Technology was agreed and a consensus reached on their functions. The related legislation was, of course, considered and approved by this House in November 1977.
The main functions of the new board were to be advisory, co-ordinating and promotional and would include, in particular, the making of recommendations for financial allocations for science and technology in the public sector via the Science Budget. The concept of a Science Budget was not of course a new one on the international scene and such a mechanism was already in operation in several EEC countries, notably in Belgium and the Netherlands.
As provided in the NBST statute, under the Science Budget procedure, the NBST prepare a statement based as far as possible on a national programme for science and technology which is to be kept under constant review. The statement includes, in particular, the requirements and proposals of every institution active in science and technology in receipt of moneys from the State and gives the board's observations and recommendations on such requirements. "Institution" is, of course, defined in the statute as covering any institute, college, laboratory or service — whether under the control of a Minister or otherwise — which is wholly or partly engaged in research and development or any other activity related to science and technology. This Science Budget statement is submitted to the Taoiseach who, after consultation with the Minister for Finance, submits it to the Government. Under the statute the final details of the financial allocations approved by the Government in respect of each institution are to be published, together with a commentary by the board on the current situation regarding national policy for science and technology, both from the point of view of conception and of implementation. These elements together constitute the Science Budget for each financial year, which is to be presented to the Houses of the Oireachtas. The document now before the House, the Science Budget for 1980, is the first such document.
The Science Budget is, of course, a classical example of a horizontal rather than a vertical sectoral approach to a Government activity and relates back to the realisation in the deliberations leading up to the establishment of the NBST and the introduction of the Science Budget that there was a need to get away from the previous fragmented approach. It is based on the notion that science and technology do not recognise vertical demarcation lines but ramify right across the spectrum of public sector activity and that a co-ordinated approach across sectoral boundaries is required.
The purposes of the new procedure can perhaps be summarised as follows:
to provide from a qualified technical source a more informed appraisal of the appropriateness or otherwise of the stated requirements of the science and technology institutions;
to present to Government an annual overview of the totality of national activities in the area of science and technology, which will enable them to be seen as a whole and in relation to each other, and their potential as major contributors to economic and social development to be appreciated;
by influencing the financial resources being made to each institution and the particular activities for which these resources are being made available, to orientate the operations of the institutions in directions which would ensure a positive contribution to development;
to identify and highlight areas in which the national effort in science and technology or the supporting infrastructure is deficient;
to facilitate more informed and effective decision-making by Government;
to facilitate worthwhile debates in the Oireachtas on science and technology.
Coming to the particular document before the House, it contains details of the allocations for 1980 and the first general commentary of the NBST on national policy for science and technology. I am assuming that Senators will be more concerned with the commentary and the general issues which it raises. I need hardly emphasise, of course, that the advice and recommendations in the document are not binding on the Government. However, this advice and these recommendations are furnished by an informed and expert public body. Obviously, therefore, the Government, having spent time and resources on the establishment of such a body, with the functions which it has, will be taking due cognisance of the recommendations of that body in formulating policy for science and technology and in its application to national development.
It is an earnest of the Government's serious intent in this regard that we have brought the Science Budget 1980 before the House for consideration by Senators as one of the steps to be taken to provide a more informed basis for public debate on the requirements of the economy and the community for science and technology, on the current capacity of the science and technology system to meet these requirements and on the steps that should be taken to improve that capacity.
Perhaps I could begin the debate by referring to the range of activities which the NBST have identified here as comprising science and technology for our purposes. These are, as indicated in the Science Budget document — scientific and technical education and training; scientific research and experimental development; scientific and technical information and documentation; technology transfer programmes and incentives; and scientific and technical back-up services.
Together, these activities comprise the totality of public sector science and technology as defined by the board. Senators may have views to offer on the definitions aspect. However, as indicated in the Science Budget, the NBST in the first year of this exercise have had as their main concern the establishing of the boundaries of science and technology in the public sector. Further work is already in train to improve the definitions so that identification of the relevant activities will be more sharply etched.
Coming to the actual recommendations in the Science Budget 1980, it is not my purpose to go through all of these seriatim. Senators may themselves wish to select different items on which to comment. It will be sufficient for my purposes in opening this debate to refer to the fact that even in the short time since this document was published there has been progress on some of the recommendations, notably under the headings of telecommunications, microelectronics, energy and scientific information.
In particular, I should like to refer to scientific and technical manpower to which a chapter of the Science Budget is devoted and to mention some recent and pending developments under this heading. In this regard Senators may be familiar with the recent White Paper on Educational Development which has some relevance.
The main developments in higher education over the last 15 years have been in technology, as is represented by the establishment of the regional technical colleges and the national institutes for higher education; by the expansion of facilities for science at University Colleges, Dublin, Cork and Galway, and Trinity College, Dublin; for dairy science at Cork and for agricultural science at University College, Dublin. Further emphasis on technology is still called for with particular regard to engineering and manufacturing technology and electronics and computer technology. Action in this regard is being taken.
With regard to engineering education, it is proposed to undertake significant expansion under this heading in all regions and at both graduate and technician levels.
With regard to computer studies, there is in existence a considerable number of courses in the various third level institutions. Further provision by way of distance learning will also be made. Courses in computer studies are also to be introduced formally into the curriculum for second level institutions. There is, of course, in existence a computer studies option in post-primary schools at the leaving certificate level. This is being taken by over 60 schools throughout the country.
To remedy serious shortages of highly qualified and skilled craft, technician, engineering and computer manpower in manufacturing and service industries, conversion courses have been introduced to improve supply in some of these occupations in the short term. In the longer term, increased output of persons with higher level qualifications in the scientific and technological area has been identified as the most effective way to alleviate shortages.
To meet these same problems account will be taken of possible shortages of teaching staff in second and third level courses in science and technology subjects. I intend to monitor the supply of teachers in these subjects to avoid shortages acting as a constraint on the course developments considered necessary.
Overriding all of this, at the third level the Government will examine funding arrangements with a view to ensuring allocation of resources for identified priority areas of national development.
These are but examples of some of the actions proposed in my own area of responsibility. They take account of the fact that the universities and institutions of higher education are the seed beds for our engineering and scientific manpower. The changed environment of the eighties and the greater degree of self-reliance which is now called for all postulate a higher education sector which will produce graduates and technicians who will have the capacity to provide the required responsiveness to the needs of the economy and society.
The actions proposed in relation to this sector and otherwise are examples of the constructive and progressive approach which is being adopted by the Government in relation to the development of science and technology and the contributions which these can make to national development. The correlation between science and technology and economic and social development is now universally accepted. It may be a fact that economic science has not yet succeeded in accounting quantitatively for the impact of science and technology on economic growth. Nevertheless, the causality is accepted and the countries which have adopted positive policies towards science and technology are now achieving in practice what may have been difficult to prove conceptually. The lesson for this country to learn and to put into practice is that technology is the adrenalin of the economic system even if its impact on economic activity affects all parts of the system in a way which as yet defies precise analysis.
The linkage between technology and growth can, in fact, be observed qualitatively. Technology transforms, shifting the production equilibrium upwards to a new level. The key to growth lies in acquiring and using effectively the most modern factors of production. A simple reallocation of the stock of existing factors is, however, not enough. A new dynamic is required. New technology provides this by changing the state of the art. Technology, and the scientific research which supports it, therefore provide the key to economic transformation.
In this country we would have to admit that there was originally little option open to us but to import the technology required to maintain a reasonable pace of development and to make up leeway in industrial and technical manufacturing processes. However, now with our developing capacity to link together economic policy, industrial policy, and science policy coherently we must increasingly endeavour to ensure that inward transfer of technology has associated with it, or can be effectively supported by, a local scientific and technological ability, which is adequate initially to counter-balance the influence of the overseas acquired technology and later to become independent of it and self-supporting.
We can learn from the Japanese experience in this regard. They began as the great imitators but are now the great innovators whom everybody is happy to emulate. Furthermore, their policy is geared to the view that a nation's income is a function of the productivity of its resources of capital and labour and that it is by the improvement of the technological level that these resources become more productive. This postulates the conclusion that a country must steadily shift its resources of capital and labour to higher levels of added value, based on a constant and continuous updating of its technological processes.
All this concentration on technology does not mean, however, that the basic sciences should be ignored. Our efforts in basic science, however endowed with quality, unfortunately have been, and are still, miniscule in scale for historical reasons. In this context we must learn, from experience elsewhere, the vital importance of sustaining a lively and creative position in basic science. Basic research is not only of intrinsic merit in itself. It is essential to the quality of teaching and is ultimately the indispensable support to applied science and to technological innovation.
Innovation itself can be considered at two levels. In a narrow sense innovation is concerned with the use of science and technology to generate viable new products and processes. In a broader sense it is concerned with the combination of factors which provide a basis for beneficial change throughout the economy and society.
Taking the narrow sense first, so far as industry particularly is concerned, the characteristics of successful innovation in the eighties have been defined as a strong base in capital goods, process engineering and automatic assembly; highly trained and mobile managers, engineers and workers; and highly efficient marketing; together, however, with a rate of technological change which is ahead of competitors. For even if the other factors are right, if the technological aspect is deficient, then success will not be achieved. The effort in science and technology should, therefore, cover such elements as a formally established and highly efficient research and development and design infrastructure; the ability to mobilise and assimilate technology from a wide range of sectors especially electronics, and a continued commitment to innovative activities even in temporarily unfavourable and discouraging circumstances. In the case of this country, special attention to the innovative needs of small and medium sized firms would be desirable. The broader interpretation of innovation suggests, however, that innovation should be applicable to wider goals, even though a less clear demand may be apparent than in the marketing of individual goods. In this regard science and technology must make a greater contribution to the quality and effectiveness of the social sector. More efforts must be devoted to the effective use of technology in the public and private delivery of services, for example, in such areas of concern as transport, the environment, urban conservation and renewal, and health care.
In sum, therefore, economic and society development depend critically on the effective utilisation of science and technology. It is important in this regard to bear in mind that the scientific and technological potential of a country is not a residual factor. Neither is it a self-contained component which can be slotted ready-made into an economic plan. It is an organic and pervasive part of the social fabric which requires systematic and con- tinued attention in its own right; while at the same time it is now more vital than ever to link science and technology policy meaningfully into economic and social policies in a two-way interaction.
All of this leads us back to the subject of our debate. Associated with the Science Budget as one of the packages of mechanisms provided for in the NBST statute, is the national programme for science and technology. This programme can take account of the various elements which I have referred to and in particular can ensure that science and technology are applied in the wider economic and social context. This programme on which the Science Budget statement itself is to be based and which will also take account of the reviews of the science and technology institutions and programmes, will not be a static blueprint but will rather be a reference point for the NBST in their work. Initially it will have a hypothetical basis which will enable meaningful assessments to be made of the requirements and programmes of the institutions and also promote the filling of gap areas. Gradually, however, as the elements of the programme are approved by Government it will become in the long run a real national programme in the fullest sense. The Government are, therefore, looking forward with interest to the first draft of this programme which is expected this year. The first complete cycle of the mechanisms provided for in the NBST statute will then be completed and can be continued with increasing effectiveness from year to year.
I commend the Science Budget 1980 to the consideration of Senators and I await their comments with interest.
I listened to the Minister's speech with interest and I join him in welcoming this very important Science Budget. It is obviously a significant day when we are faced with the first witness of an effort to come to terms with the whole range of science and technology which has developed in recent decades, gathering momentum every year. I welcome also the acknowledgment that science and technology are such an essential part of development in every area of life that there must be a horizontal way of looking at this work. I liked that mention of a horizontal rather than a vertical sectoral approach to Government activity. This is a very good idea for a lot of other areas in society. The activities of the people would be looked at from a horizontal rather than a vertical sectoral approach. The very existence of modern technology should make that possible.
The Minister says that science and technology do not recognise vertical demarcation lines. How often has progress been held up in very significant areas by those very demarcation lines? I refer to the areas of social legislation, areas to do with children and that sort of problem where it is considered too difficult to get different areas together because different Departments are dealing with different aspects. If this is a breakthrough into looking at a horizontal approach to issues concerning all the people then I welcome it very much indeed.
I congratulate the National Board for Science and Technology which we set up here in 1977. At that time Deputy Martin O'Donoghue, who then held the position of Minister for Economic Planning and Development, ushered this National Board for Science and Technology into being. I understand the board are now under the Department of the Taoiseach. I was, therefore, slightly taken aback to see the Minister for Education appearing today. Perhaps over-optimistically, I expected to see the Taoiseach. It is such an absolutely vital area that I am glad we have a distinguished Minister to discuss it with us.
We had in the past weekend a very tragic reminder of the emphasis which must be placed on science and technology when we are dealing with places of public entertainment. This debate will have some relevance to that issue today. As well as being helped by modern developments in science and technology we can be destroyed by those developments. We must remind ourselves of that. It is absolutely essential that while industry enjoys the benefits of modern technology and scientific development, which we hope to place at their disposal by providing the technologists, those same resources must be used for the protection of the environment.
The section in this report that mentions the environment is especially welcome. It is important that we ask ourselves if An Foras Forbartha and the IIRS — two bodies who are so extremely important in the whole area of the environment — are getting the increased funding and facilities that they need. I do not believe that that is the case. I was extremely taken aback to hear on the radio after Saturday's disaster a representative of the IIRS saying that in order to test new materials being used they have to send them abroad, because they do not have the testing facilities in Ireland and that when they sent them abroad they joined the end of somebody else's queue. He felt that this was an extremely unsatisfactory situation and was holding up the introduction of proper regulations. It is very important in terms of the environment therefore, and in terms of the protection of people, that the institutes we have are given the kind of funding and staffing they need to carry out the task with which they have been charged.
I am glad to see that the NBST are in the process of designing a national programme for environmental science and technology. This is obviously something which they see as an important part of their work. I hope it will be stepped up and increased because it is as least as important as other kinds of technological advances.
To touch briefly on the area of waste utilisation, which is on page 45 of the report, we have to make a breakthrough in waste utilisation. There has obviously been a great deal of interest in this subject recently. The EEC have taken a particular interest in the utilisation of waste and they have an environmental action programme and a secondary raw materials programme to support this concept.
When we talk about waste utilisation we should also mention the whole process of the utilisation of domestic waste. This is an area we have not even begun to approach in Ireland. I was extremely impressed when I spent some time recently in somebody's house in Brussels. In an ordinary suburban area of Brussels, which resembles in many respects countless suburban areas in the larger cities and towns of Ireland, the householder was expected on a Tuesday to have ready for a lorry all the papers which had been collected in that house the previous week. Magazines, newspapers, and so on, had to be tied into a big bundle and the lorry would not take them if they were not neatly tied up. The following Tuesday another lorry came along and collected all the glass which was for disposal, all bottles of every kind. Again they had to be stacked in cardboard boxes and handed out in a fairly reasonably ordered way, so that it was a very fast operation. There was no hanging about, or time wasted. I gathered this was being done in order to re-use the paper and the glass.
When this commune in Brussels introduced this idea, it did so on the basis that it would pay for itself within three years of its introduction. I understand that, indeed, it has paid for itself, and is becoming a very profitable part of the enterprise of those communes who are using it. Surely we have many areas where that kind of approach could be adopted and, allied to that, we should look very carefully at an area which has been very much neglected — the packaging of products for use domestically. We should have much more stringent controls over packaging, over plastic bottles, over packages which simply cannot be disposed of, which lie about the place — they do not rot, they do not burn — creating more and more rubbish, more and more of a hazard to the environment. We should not rely on the efforts of environmental groups and perhaps the occasional advertisement on television. We should outlaw any packaging substances for constantly used goods which cannot be re-used or destroyed.
The other area I want to mention briefly is the section on telecommunications on page 55 which reads like a fairytale. It is full of the most marvellous wishes and pronouncements which resemble very much the pronouncements made by the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, Deputy Reynolds, recently about the wonderful telecommunications system we are to have, the up-to-date digital systems which will put us in touch with people in Hong Kong at the touch of a button, and might even put us in touch with the people in Cork if we are very lucky.
I feel sorry for the National Board for Science and Technology when they approach this question of telecommunications because there has been such a problem in the past about capital planning and funding in this area. When I hear about the wonderful plans we have for bringing our telephone system into the 20th century I cannot help thinking what an extraordinarily patient people we are. I do not know how many people have had premature heart attacks caused by frustration with our telephones, but I am really astonished that the anger takes such a private form. I am sure every person in this House gets many letters about the telephones. I certainly get a remarkable flood of them. If any area in the Science Budget needs a very special scrutiny, it is the area of telecommunications. It is absolutely no use to develop scientific and industrial expertise across the country if we simply cannot talk to each other about it, or cannot contact each other about it.
I now come to the very important section on education and training. There is no doubt that the future of industry will be based on technology or processes which bring new technology to traditional industries. It is also quite clear, with the way the Irish economy is developing, that industry will develop at a much faster rate than agriculture. When we talk about our own demographic structure and the stresses caused by the number of young people looking for work, we realise that that work will depend on technological industries. There will be a considerable change in the kind of work done in offices, for example, because of technological advances in office equipment. There will have to be a switch out of that kind of work. Obviously we will depend on suitably skilled manpower to develop our technological capacity. Up to 1979, our planning for new technology was running behind developments in Irish industry. There have been forecasts of a short-fall in manpower in the area of electronics. It was predicted that jobs available in electronics-based industry will rise from 14,000 in 1979 to 30,000 in 1985.
We should remind ourselves that new technologies are essentially based on mathematics and physics, and examination statistics show that at leaving certificate level these subjects are not very popular. Therefore, one of the first requirements for the future has to be a shift in subject choice at second level if entry to careers based on technology is to be helped. I should like to remind the House that, at leaving certificate level, the approximate percentages of boys and girls who choose science subjects are: percentage of boys choosing physics 20, percentage of girls 5. The percentage of boys taking chemistry is 33, and the percentage of girls is 14. The percentage of boys taking mathematics is 15, and the percentage of girls is 4.
Having looked at those six figures, it is very surprising that, since 1965, the ratio of male to female taking science subjects at leaving certificate has shown little or no change in those past 16 years. When we look at the leaving certificate maths results we see that in fact the number of girls and boys taking higher maths at leaving certificate is declining generally; however, those who take higher mathematics for their leaving certificate are getting better results at them. The numbers taking higher mathematics are declining. In 1975, for example, the number of higher mathematics male candidates amounted to 17.6 per cent of the total. In 1980, 14.5 per cent of the total number who took higher mathematics were boys. In 1975, girls formed 3.6 per cent of those who took higher mathematics in the leaving certificate and in 1980 the figure was 3.7 per cent.
In contrast to the falling numbers of people actually taking higher mathematics, despite all the efforts in the past few years to show the importance of technology, this is extremely significant. Despite the falling numbers of people actually taking it, it is interesting to note that the success rate is improving. The percentage of boys who took maths in 1975 who got Grade C or a better result was 59.3. In 1980 the figure had gone up to 76 per cent which is quite a staggering increase. The percentage of girls achieving honours in higher mathematics was 58 in 1975, and the figure had gone up to 81.2 per cent in 1980. These are very intersting figures. We are talking about higher quality but fewer numbers. That must be a source of worry to people interested in the development of science and technology. When we talk about giving jobs to girls and boys, we must double the number of boys in the eighties taking higher mathematics, and we must quadruple the number of girls, if we are to be able to provide the job opportunities in the right places for the young people who will put such pressure on our employment structure.
The National Board for Science and Technology have carried out a good campaign in trying to change the figures somewhat. The Employment Equality Agency have done great work too in bringing new thinking to bear but, unfortunately in most areas there is no national commitment to changing the structures to do with women's equality, and what is required in this area is a national commitment. Let us take some comfort, however, from the increase in the number of women enrolling in engineering studies which are only a small element of technology. At least there is some improvement. Now 14 per cent of the first year enrolment into engineering schools is made up of women as compared with only 5.5 per cent in 1975.
I do not want to go at length into why there is this problem about so few girls taking leaving certificate science and maths. We are all aware of a wide range of underlying factors. The Economic and Social Research Institute were commissioned by the Employment Equality Agency to study the whole question of subject choice in post-primary schools and a first part of this study was published in 1980. It appears that the lack of the provision of these subjects in schools is as much to blame as the sex bias which exists. There is a lack of the provision of technical subjects in girls' schools right across the board, and this is one significant area. There are also the attitudes of parents. Parents of young people coming up to leaving certificate level are products of a system where girls were steered very definitely in one direction and boys in another. This kind of parental influence will form an important part of the final report of the ESRI in this area.
It is emphasised that an unfortunate result of the lack of attention to the whole problem of sterotyping of girls and boys is a short-fall in the number of people available for new technology which is so badly needed. There is a great deal of evidence that many married women who do not remain in the labour force now will do so in future. This will have its effect on women in the younger age group who will not always see themselves as having a very short-term career.
I should like to conclude by saying that the £58 million spent on the education and training sector is a great deal of money indeed, that is, the £58 million as detailed in this report being spent on education and training. It would not take very many millions of that £58 million to make a dramatic change in the next five years in the number of young women taking their place beside young men in the new and exciting technological age that is in front of us. We owe it both to our industries and to our young women to undertake a very strong programme in that area. I am very glad that the Seanad has had an opportunity to discuss this important report. I look forward very much indeed to hearing the remainder of the debate, and I congratulate the National Board of Science and Technology on putting it before us.
The Science Budget makes a valuable contribution to our understanding of the part played by science and technology in the economy generally. It emphasises the importance of science and technology. It sets out in a comprehensive way the extent of State funding, the areas which benefit, and the proportion in which each of these areas benefits. It also makes it clear at the end that the funding, although highly beneficial and essential, is nonetheless inadequate.
It is interesting to note the Departments in which most of the spending on science and technology takes place at the moment: education 37 per cent; agriculture 16 per cent; industry 15 per cent; health 13 per cent; and the balance in the remainder of the Departments. It is even more interesting to note the allocation, between various sectors coming under the heading of science and technology, of the funds which are available: 34 per cent of this goes to education and training; 17.6 per cent to research and development; 8.5 per cent to information and documentation; 8.5 per cent to transfer programmes; 25 per cent to scientific and technical services; and the balance remaining to other areas.
What is interesting about these allocations is that, though they may be valid and may be in fact just right, it is quite evident that they were arrived at in a rather haphazard way, that these allocations grew over the years depending on whether particular Departments made a good case for the kind of spending they wanted to indulge in, and that there was no overall view of what should be spent under these various headings. As I say, although the allocations may happen to have been correct, we cannot continue to spend money on science and technology in this rather haphazard way.
The importance of planning and, the importance of management are very apparent from the Science Budget and, if the best results are to be obtained, it is essential that we have an overall view of expenditure, that we have an overall picture which will put the spending in perspective, which will enable us to make an assessment of the priorities and, having made that assessment of the allocation of funds, the allocation of resources — and resources are always scarce — then we must make the proper allocation. Of course this is a job for the board. This is a job which they have been given to do. They have been given the job of advising what these allocations should be.
It is apparent from reading the Science Budget that, in order to plan effectively for the future, long-term funding is essential and that at least the board will have an understanding that funds will be available of approximately a certain amount so that they can plan into the future. In fact, most of the problems which have to be dealt with under the heading of science and technology need sustained action over many years and, consequently, long-term funding is an essential requirement.
The National Board for Science and Technology have been given the job of advising on these allocations of planning and management and I think everyone will agree that the emergence of this board was very welcome. There is every indication from the first document put before us that they will do a highly efficient job. Having been given responsibility for this, it is to be hoped that their advice will be accepted. The Minister said in his opening statement, that the Government were not bound by any advice they got but, nevertheless, having regard to the informed and expert background of the board, they would have to have very careful regard for any advice given to them.
I should like the Minister to comment on one instance of what appears to be a departure from the advice given by the board. It is in regard to the withdrawal of the subvention by the Forest and Wildlife Service to the IIRS forest products department. I understand that something in the region of £40 million worth of timber is imported every year for the building industry and that much of this could be supplied in the form of native timber, but the building industry are somewhat unsure of the suitability of native timber for their purposes. It was to meet this problem that the forest products department were set up. It was hoped that, with the help and advice of that department, something in the region of three-quarters of the timber which is now being imported could be supplied in the form of native timber. This could only be done with the help of that department who would, on the one hand, give advice as to how the timber should be treated and, on the other hand, would lay down standards, and so on, which would reassure the building industry as to the suitability of native timber. With the saving of approximately £30 million a year of hard won foreign exchange and with the benefit gernerally to the country, it is difficult to understand the withdrawal of this subvention if, in fact, this is the case. Perhaps my information in this regard is not accurate.
Many regard research and development as the most important of the science and technology departments for the successful expansion of industry, agriculture and exports. It would be wrong to emphasise this heading to the exclusion of other sectors but, undoubtedly, research and development are vital to our economic expansion and to our success in expanding our exports. Consequently, it is far from encouraging to find that the percentage of the Government's budget, as opposed to the Science Budget, devoted to research and development is the lowest in the European Community. The expenditure of Government and industry is less than 1 per cent compared to 2 per cent in some of the developed countries.
Although the Government may be criticised in this respect, the fact is that they provide 60 per cent of the funds devoted to research and development here. In this regard their record is very good. This is, in fact, the highest in the EEC in the sense that the Government provide 60 per cent of those funds which are devoted to this matter. On the other hand, business, industry and agriculture provide very little funding in this respect. They are the worst in the EEC. They provide less than half of what is spent on research and development.
Whereas this contribution to industry and agriculture might have been acceptable ten, 15 or 20 years ago, it is not acceptable now. The very dramatic expansion of industry over the past 15 or 20 years, the very much increased prosperity of agriculture following our accession to the European Community, should have resulted in a very significant increase in funds devoted to research and development. I am not suggesting this should be done merely as a gesture to a good cause, but as something that is essential to continued expansion, productivity and profit. This would be possible only if an adequate contribution to research and development were made by industry and agriculture. It is, therefore, very disappointing that so little has been done by the private sector to contribute funds to this area. Successful economic expansion depends on acquiring and using effectively the latest and best factors of production. This needs to be said again and again.
In a sense we are lucky in our belated industrial revolution — if you can call it a revolution. Because we have been behind other countries in our industrial expansion, we have the benefit of modern industries and modern equipment. We can take advantage of many developments which have taken place in the past few years while other countries who started before us are possibly still having to make do with factories and equipment which are somewhat out of date, but not so much out of date that they can afford to let them go.
Unfortunately, many of our industrialists and farmers regard expenditure on research and development as something to be incurred when everything else has been provided for. It is regarded as an optional extra instead of the basis upon which other expenditure should be made. It should be regarded as a primary investment, rather than as a low priority expenditure. I hope the discussions which will arise from reading this Science Budget will have some effect in persuading the private enterprise sector to devote more money, more time and more interest to research and development.
The Science Budget also deals admirably with the question of manpower planning, with the planning to satisfy demand for special skills to service technology-based development. It appears that serious shortfalls have arisen, and will arise, in engineering and scientific graduate technicians. Senator Hussey has dealt with this in detail and I do not want to go into it any further except to say that it is a very serious problem. She pointed out that the trouble originates in second level education and that the lack of emphasis on physical sciences and higher mathematics has led to the situation which we are faced with at the moment. It seems extraordinary that there should have been such lack of communication, lack of liaison, between the educational establishment, industry and agriculture, business, over the years. It is, of course, true that there has been great expansion in these areas, that there have been new methods, new technology, that there has been diversification of all kinds and that it would be unfair to expect the educational establishment to have anticipated all the diversification of the new methods and to be able to plan in advance for exactly the kind of students and skills that would have been required.
One would imagine a better effort could have been made to adopt the educational courses, to advise students in order to provide for present demands. However, what happened in the past has happened. What is important is that from now on—and I feel sure a great deal has been done in this regard over the last few years because the situation that has been emerging over the past few years has become clear and a great deal of effort has been made to remedy it—students must be made aware of the skills which will be required in the future, not merely in the sense of telling them they must have these skills, but they should be told that if they want to obtain employment in the future and avail of the job opportunities that will be there, they should take certain courses. They must be encouraged at an early stage to take the appropriate subjects in the leaving certificate, otherwise it would be impossible at a later stage to do the degrees, or to acquire the skills, technical and otherwise, which will be essential.
In the broader field of planning the economy, the contribution of science and technology is fundamental. Policy decisions on development, industry and agriculture must depend on technological advice. The evolution of energy, transport and communications must be based on the most up-to-date technology. The same applies to decisions regarding the development of our natural resources and the protection of our environment. In industry there is a special problem which needs help. We must, as far as possible, develop an integrated industrial plan. We must encourage enterprises which will take root, which will thrive within the advantages and limitations of our climate, of our geographical position and of our economy generally.
There has been too much emphasis on the provision of employment in the past when particular kinds of industry were being considered for grants and encouragement. It is not enough merely to say that an industry would provide employment. More regard must be had to its long-term viability and to its adaptibility to the economic climate of this country. Such enterprises will last much longer than others which may provide employment for a short or medium time, but the possibility is that they will eventually fail to live up to the problems and limitations of our economy whereas the integrated industry will endure and, provide steady long-term employment.
I will conclude by urging the ever-present necessity for ensuring communication between science and technology institutions and those who stand to benefit from the fruits of their work. Nothing could be more futile than a highly sophisticated, highly talented, highly efficient institution which works in isolation and neglects to pass on the fruits of its endeavour to those who can transform these discoveries, these technological advances, into goods and services, ultimately, to increased exports and to the prosperity of the economy.
I would like to join with other Senators in welcoming the publication of this Science Budget and the way in which it lays out our programmes in the scientific and technological field and, in particular, the way in which it joins together the efforts of various Government Departments and various areas in this field. Perhaps a little unlike Senator Hussey. I particularly welcome the fact that it is the Minister for Education who is present for this debate because, in a sense, the whole key to our scientific and technological development lies with our educational process and as such, with the Minister for Education. Other Senators have emphasised, and I would agree with them, the extreme importance of science and technology, both in our educational development and in our economic development, and in our good fortune, in that because of our late industrial development we can look forward to a development of these particularly technologically based industries which are the best hope for employment in our future and which are the progress industries in particular of the EEC.
Like Senator Hussey, I look back as well to the sixties. I look back in particular to what I consider to have been a seminal report and submission produced at that time by the vocational teachers association, which has now developed into the Teachers Union of Ireland, whose general secretary was Professor Charles McCarthy, in which basic proposals were made for the development of our technological education and our technician education, proposals which lay behind the establishment of some of our regional colleges of technology and much of our technological educational development since then. I would share the emphasis of this report that we do not only need third level technological development in our education but also second level technician development. Many of our economic shortages are not just in the highest level of technologically qualified people, but in the second level of the technicians who back them up, because for every technologist in industry you need a back-up of quite a number of technicians at the slightly lower level, so that our educational system must deal with both levels.
To continue about the effect of the importance of technology and science in our educational system, every Senator who has spoken agreed there is too much emphasis in our educational system on purely academic subjects as opposed to the mathematical science technological subjects. There is no question about this. We have to look only at the qualifications, the leaving certificate results, that are required by our teenage children to get into such university faculties as medicine and law, to see there is vast competition for these faculties. What is wrong with our educational outlook that there should be such a rush of people to try to get into faculties as opposed to the engineering, scientific, technological faculties which are the ones which in many ways this country really needs? I suggest that behind this lies a kind of vicious circle which it may be quite difficult to break out of, and in which the Department of Education can play a key role in getting out of. Part of the lack of interest of our second level children going in for mathematical and scientific subjects lies in difficulty in obtaining the best quality teachers in these subjects.
As someone who entered the university on a mathematical scholarship. I later became aware that I attended one of the very few girls schools which could provide education in higher mathematics. I am distressed to find that, although so many years have passed since this happened, the situation, while it has altered, has not altered so much because if a woman wants to go in for scientific or mathematical subjects and does not attend a co-educational school she may have difficulty getting the teaching needed for these subjects.
There is traditional reluctance to encourage women to enter such fields as Senator Hussey has referred to. We need the idea of positive discrimination in favour of these subjects both for girls and for boys. They should be encouraged to enter these fields. Great importance should be placed on the encouragement of people entering the teaching profession who would provide the back-up for children who wished to take this kind of education.
I notice that the Minister's speech on this Science Budget has placed a heavy emphasis on scientific and technological education. We have seen this in our recent discussions on the setting up of the various national institutes for higher education. There is one matter which I would like to raise here. In our enthusiasm for setting up these new educational institutes we should not forget the institutions we already have — those that have borne the burden and heat of the day, have borne the brunt of producing our technological graduates in the past. I speak particularly of the colleges that are joined in the Dublin Institute of Technology — Kevin Street, Bolton Street and the Dublin VEC colleges generally, who through the years, have produced very high quality technicians and technologists.
I am aware that the staff of these institutions are very worried that this established and worthy tradition is being forgotten and that there is a refusal on an official basis even to recognise the Dublin Institute of Technology, a refusal to give adequate funds to the development of these colleges, a refusal even to maintain their buildings properly, and in a sense a downgrading of their staff because their salary scales are considerably lower than those paid to university and NIHE staff in the same field. I would like to know from the Minister whether it is departmental policy to downgrade these colleges, which have in the past produced our basic technological education, whether they are to be thrown out in favour of the new NIHEs, and if so, would he state so categorically? If not, would he look into the possibility of encouraging these colleges further and ensuring that they can recruit proper teaching staff by paying their teaching staff salary scales comparable to those in other technological institutions?
I would like to make a few remarks about the encouragement of basic research in scientific and technological subjects. Senator E. Ryan pointed out that our Government have a good record in the sense that they have provided 60 per cent of the funding for basic research and this is to be welcomed. Nevertheless, the problem is that very little money is spent on basic research, whether by Government or by private means. I know our means are limited but it is important that we should at least continue to keep up with the increases in the cost of living and so on when providing money for research.
I would like the Minister, if possible, to tell us whether the kind of grants coming from Government sources to basic research have done even as much as this. So far as I can ascertain from information that I get from people who are engaged in basic research, while there is considerable hope of getting money to continue with established research projects and perhaps extend them, those who are presenting new research projects have very little hope of getting funding. I can give an example of a physicist who was anxious to set up a research project in measuring the radiation dose in the Irish population which was resulting from radiation in the Irish Sea. This kind of radiation dose is steadily monitored in Britain and it is important for the safeguarding of the health of our population that we should know what is happening. This physicist was unable last year to obtain funds from any Irish source. He did eventually get grants from EEC sources. This is a vital area of research where it would be encouraging if our own scientists could rely on our own resources to get grants for research.
In this research area much of the basic work is in practical terms done by post-primary degree students who are perhaps working for their doctoral thesis. The kind of grants available to support them in this work are very small. I understand some of the people involved in this kind of research are expected to survive on grants of about £58 per month. If they undertake kitchen work or anything else to try to help out, to keep food in their mouths and to pay for their lodgings, their grant is correspondingly reduced. I would not describe this as encouraging research and development. I would like to see our doctoral students being encouraged to a greater extent by at least having sufficient grants to pay for their digs and keep bread in their mouths while they do their research.
I welcome the whole idea of this Science Budget and the gathering together in one report of what is going on in all the different Government Departments in this field, because so often we find there is a basic split between what is going on in one Department and what is going on in another Department. It is a very welcome sign to see them all coming together to produce a budget and a plan of this kind. While I have made a number of remarks that have been relatively critical, this is because I feel it is worth saying something to try to promote the positive carrying out of the various recommendations of this Science Budget and the improvement of our scientific and technological education.
I, too, have been very impressed at the contents of this first Science Budget and welcome it as a very thought provoking debate. I am sorry that the members of the board seem to be anonymous, and I hope we will learn who they are, because there are so many organisations listed in the document that I would like to know who the people are who are influencing our future in such a dynamic way.
When I was on the Electricity Supply Board one of my main concerns was that however proud we were of the efficient performance of the ESB in projecting their long-term future plans and estimated budgets for major capital expenditure, such as generating stations and distribution links, I could never find out how the total financial projections of the ESB fitted into the overall national plan embracing all the corporate plans and financial projections of the other State bodies. As an accountant looking at the future, it worried me to know where we were going in our total national financial projections, how much we could afford and even if the ESB, relative to the total national budget, could afford their projections. This Science Budget opens up the whole question of how far and in what direction we can go with our future public commitments. I am delighted to hear the Minister outline one of the purposes of the new procedure, which is to present the Government with an annual review of the totality of national activities in the area of science and technology.
It is generally accepted that human nature resists change, and what greater evidence have we than the current appalling trend of paying out enormous lump sums to members of the public service for even minor changes in work location which, in the majority of cases, involve environmental improvement and better working conditions? Taking this as a simple example of human attitudes, how do we induce change in Ireland from the still prevalent, easy going, agricultural-based country we have been, to a new consciousness of the revolutionary changes which are taking place in science and technology throughout the world? How do we go about teaching individuals their responsibility to face up to change and to participate in this new industrial revolution on our doorstep or, as the Minister referred to it, our economic transformation?
We must obviously start with our youth, as Senators have already outlined and the science budget reiterates that rapid improvement in the area of career guidance is vital. I am one of the people against change in the theory of academic education. We must maintain the principles of a liberal education. Therefore I suggest that the school leaving age should be extended by at least one term to cover the study of the wide spectrum of career opportunities, including training and teaching of youth to prepare for the world outside, and in particular for the technological and scientific changes which are now taking place and which can provide them with a fascinating and stimulating future, provided they are taught to continue to learn and to continue their education and to work for reasonable rewards when they take up apprenticeships so that whatever career they may choose, we should have some form of transitional period which has been so lacking in the difference between the academic training and the technological and scientific opportunities that are available. More time should be given to help our youth to find out where their particular abilities lie. Such a course could avoid so many of the pitfalls which school-leavers suffer from today in the great urgency to get more money in the short term only to find themselves square pegs in round holes in the long term.
I envisage a kind of sabbatical period during which youngsters could research and analyse for themselves their future potential and come to terms with both their ambitions and their limitations. In any event, we need a re-orientation of our manpower policy. There is a greater need for more statistics, such as the locations where manpower is or will be available, and the future trends in population centres. We need to have a new look at the whole policy of decentralisation which, in turn, may open up the necessity for universities in areas other than Cork, Galway and Dublin — an aspiration I know the Minister is deeply involved with.
A great deal of knowledge is required as to the policy of decentralisation which is being planned. This particularly applies to the regionalisation of the public service and the need to provide living accommodation at low cost rentals. Obviously, the pursuit of further science budgets will need statements on decentralisation which will also help those in the construction industry to plan their part in the materialisation of the change and help in the total national planning of the improvement of our infrastructure to which the Government are committed.
One criticism I have about this Science Budget is that the Government Departments are required to prepare expenditure projections only up to the year 1983, when it should be for at least the next ten years. I reckon that this is why we are hearing so many reports on the various State bodies, that one of the major problems is under-investment because of the lack of adequate forward projections in the past ten years. If we were to analyse the reason for such lack in realistic projections I consider one of the main factors inhibiting greater economic efficiency in this country has been the absence of an inter-play between the private sector and public administrators.
Unlike France, this country has no tradition of mobility between the civil service and the private sector. This is unfortunate since it tends to cause rigidities in the economic system. Greater mobility between management in the public and private industries would yield three major benefits. First, it would allow each side to experience and to comprehend the difficulties faced on the other side of the fence. Secondly, it would permit the acquisition of new skills which with greater mobility of personnel could be transferred from one sector to the other with undoubted benefits accruing to both sides of the process. Thirdly, it would tend to mitigate rather tense relationships that at present obtain between professional management in the public sector and their private sector counterparts.
One way of breaking down the barriers between the public and private sectors is to allow both sides to scale the fence that divides them so easily. I do not wish to minimise the difficulties, but a recent study by Durkan and McCarthy of the Economic and Social Research Institute showed that the average pay in the public service is now considerably higher than in other areas, and that the gap is growing at an accelerating pace. This is accentuated by the pension entitlements of the public service and makes it more difficult to induce greater mobility, even if this was encouraged by the administrative structure. The Minister referred in his speech to the necessity for greater mobility and I hope this aspect will be pursued by the National Board for Science and Technology. The Minister said that highly trained and mobile managers are needed and the only way we will obtain mobility is if there is inter-relation between the private and public sectors.
I am concerned about one aspect of the Science Budget, where Ireland stands in Europe's plans for its role in space. According to the Financial Times leading Western European countries had talks in Paris recently to map out Europe's role in space over the next ten years and found that their task was complicated by sharp conflicts of commercial interests. The European Space Agency is changing from a forum of co-operation to one of competition, particularly between West Germany, France and Britain. The plan ranges across the frontiers of science in fields such as telescopes and remote sensing devices. A more immediate issue is how Western European countries should tackle the massive telecommunications market. The world could spend at least £15 billion sterling on civilian state equipment, excluding launchers, in the next ten years according to a recent study for Britain's Department of Industry. In the US special business links have been introduced alongside the more familiar television and telephone satellite circuits.
I am anxious to know what part we may be playing in the European Space Agency. Listening to the Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, a man who recognises the inadequacies of our telecommunications system, it seems we can get on to the bandwagon of communications and politically encourage maximum co-operation with America, who have shown themselves to be so scientifically progressive and ahead in the billions of dollars being spent on space research.
We have already been warned that satellite television is well on the way, and unless we are somehow involved we may find our small island completely drenched in questionable and disquieting propaganda which is easily receivable on our domestic television network.
In America enormous incentives to support the high technology sector from challenges abroad are proposed and, bearing in mind the amount of American investment in Ireland, it seems that we should exploit and support such investment. Thb other wealthy European countries will be energetically pursuing their own scientific priorities and, like everything else in the Community, will tend to bend the rules to suit themselves. They will show themselves reluctant to share what could become precious commercial secrets of tomorrow. We must ensure that in a shrinking European space agency we do not become a repository for the less pressing or possible projects which no one else really wants.
I am glad the report, as Senator Hussey mentioned, drew attention to the importance of waste as a resource. Too few Irish manufacturers, customers and, indeed, politicians are aware of the proposed directive on waste. This new European Commission directive proposes that ring-top cans and non-returnable bottles should be banned throughout the EEC. That must be sweet music to Senator Hussey's ears. The directive, which was discussed at a luncheon conference on waste management organised by the Commission, will also force distributors to accept empty returnable drink containers. Whilst individual countries of the EEC appear to agree on the principal aims of the draft there is disagreement on the best way to implement the legislation. Its possible consequences for inter-Community trade and industry are very hard to assess in general. Commendably, the Commissioners are also trying to introduce rules on the recovery and re-use of waste paper and board.
The Science Budget points out that Government legislation and financial assistance will be necessary to motivate organisations to improve waste utilisation. In Jacobs we have investigated the collection of waste and its re-use. It would currently cost us £105,000 to save only £26,000 a year. If grants were bigger this might be an economic proposition, but the problem for most industries is that they do not have enough waste in a unit. A unit would need to be coordinated in a combine of factories. Consequently, the best people who should be looking into waste incineration as a source of energy are corporations and county councils.
A lot of money is being spent in creating dumps to dump burnable waste, and many fortunes are spent in other directions such as buying oil to heat corporation flats. I am sure this report will encourage research into the possibility of burning waste and using it as an energy source in order to provide hot water, thereby eliminating the need to buy oil to heat, for instance, corporation flats and housing estates. This is being done on the Continent and in England on a fairly large scale and with a considerable degree of success. There are other possibilities of effluent from pig farms and, indeed, human effluent being used to produce methane which is then burnt to provide an energy source for heating communities. It would also of course, get rid of the pollution problem we are currently saddled with.
The establishment of the new Department of Energy and the commitment of An Tánaiste certainly created a public awareness of the necessity to conserve energy and cut down our oil import bills. In my time on the board of the ESB there was a matter of competing in the promotion and usage of energy. Enormous advertising campaigns were carried out to try to promote electricity against gas. Obviously, as this report points out, there is enormous potential for the co-ordination of the activities of State energy boards. In my experience the new factories which were built up to ten years ago in the halcyon days of cheap electricity provide enormous opportunities for energy conservation. We can all think of the touch of the switch which will turn on numerous lights rather than just one.
As the report states, all private companies with any sense of responsibility are involved in research and development associated with the supply of fuel for the manufacture of any energy conversion equipment for the management of large energy consuming processes. The initial response has been good but, like the Guaranteed Irish campaign, it needs sustaining and reminders. Propaganda must be sustained at national level.
The equipment grants for industry tend to be too small. In Irish Biscuits we could heat our factory completely and provide all the hot water we require from the waste heat from the ovens. The current savings would be about £40,000 and the current capital expenditure would be about £120,000, not including the interest on the money we would have to borrow to instal that equipment. There must be many other industries wasting energy from waste heat in their production processes. To detach and re-use it is not yet an economic proposition, but I am sure further investigation will be made into the size of grants allowed to encourage such essential savings.
In the area of transport we have fitted a streamliner on top of the cab of one of our vans and this is giving us an increase of 10 per cent in miles per gallon. This is undoubtedly worth doing, but there is another very important opportunity in the case of our vans delivering biscuits. Our vans return empty because we are prohibited from taking on loads as we are not licensed carriers. We cannot become so under present legislation which protects CIE. However, that argument is for another day. It is a potential for saving energy.
I must make complimentary reference to the Institute for Industrial Research and Standards and Martin Cranley, the director, whom I have known for many years. We have got enormous help in food technology and advisory service on wrapping materials. The importance of food is emphasised in this report and I know it will be investigated. As far as our industry is concerned the continuing co-operation with the IIRS is very much valued. This experience, together with the unlimited potential for progress outlined in this science budget, must give us great confidence in the future of our economy, provided the various financial aspects are well co-ordinated and controlled.
I noted, having regard to the theme that I am wishing to address myself to today, that I ought to have prepared something which would be less likely to have the fate that is attendant on a speech delivered in this House. It is rather like what Adam Smith said when commenting on services, that they could not be regarded as productive because a service which is produced is consumed the very instant of its production. Thus the delivery of the speech here. I get some reconciliation from the famous Chesterton remark that if a thing is worth doing it is worth doing badly. Thus, if I do what I do badly perhaps it would suggest to someone else that it might be worth trying to do well.
I should like to place on record my indebtedness to two individuals. The first, Professor Tom Hardiman, who gave the first in a series of lectures on science policy at the 250th anniversary celebrations of the RDS. I will not be following the line that might be suggested to some-one who would simply sit at Mr. Hardiman's feet and move on from there. I should like to think that both Mr. Hardiman's lecture and the lecture given by the second person, Professor Patrick K. Lynch on whither science policy, the 7th Kane lecture, were in some way written into the record of this House. It is a pity that there is not some procedure for doing this without members being subjected to the boring business of listening to them being read. I am indebted to Professor Lynch.
I wish to make a couple of banal remarks which fit into the general atmosphere generated by the debate so far and would be understandable even if I shut up after I made them. I would probably not be making this speech were it not that Professor Lynch's lecture inspired me to go back to sources I had once tapped and endeavour, at least, to bring together my thoughts. His was not an uncritical acceptance of science and technology. Professor Lynch tries and succeeds very well, in doing the kind of thing involved in trying to connect two different types of knowledge, two different types of activity, an endeavour which can rarely be made without considerable tension.
I should like to compliment the National Board for Science and Technology for having produced so very well the report which is the subject of our debate. If my later remarks seem in any way to be critical of anything in that document I should like to say immediately that I recognise their document falls properly within the ambit of the legislation creating that board. If there are defects in the public impact resulting from this document those defects result rather more from the terms of definition of the legislation or the narrower range in which they are kept working and the absence of a more congenial context, humanly speaking, for their work. They do what they have to do well, and I should like to compliment them on that.
In general, the Report summarises that 20 Government Departments spent £170 million but it is not altogether clear whether that is what the science budget is, in fact, telling us. Is it telling us that in 1980 we spent £170 million through 20 Government Departments or is it telling us that, on the basis of the Estimates prepared and proposed at the commencement of 1980, that that is what it was proposed to spend? What is clear is that, whether we spent £170 million or not in 1980, or £170 million was the proposed expenditure after the budget, it is not telling us what was actually spent in 1980 because its date is May 1980. It is not telling us of the National Board for Science and Technology, what ought to be spent or in what manner it ought to be spent because of the curious way of proceeding imposed upon that board. Under the structure designed by the Act the board made a statement in the autumn of 1979 as to its recommendations for expenditure on science and technology in 1980. We have not seen that document and we do not know its contents. I may have some criticism of the dangers of technology, of its possible abuses and the effect of its excessive regimentation without regard to other human experiences, other human methods of knowing. The technology which is desirable surely needs to be applied to our processes of government, to the manner in which we produce legislation, the manner in which we procure amendments to that legislation and the speed with which we adopt our procedures to produce what needs to be produced with the least possible human effort. That seems to be an entirely proper use of technology. It may be that instead of having in February 1981 a debate on what the national board found in May 1980 to be the Government's proposed expenditure for science and technology for that year, it would be better that in the autumn of 1979 we were listening to what the national board thought ought to be spent. Then, as legislators, we could have considered those proposals and, in considering them, consider what the Government's proposals were. Perhaps the budgetary decisions would be the better for that process. At least our proceedings would be the more relevant and our energy, perhaps, more profitably and productively employed.
At any rate this, they claimed, was the expenditure, £170 million. I do not think it is necessary to tell the House, because Senators can easily find it out themselves, how this expenditure was proposed to be divided. More than one-third went into education and training. After that one-quarter went into scientific and technical services. Something less than one-quarter went into research and development. I should like to tell the House that I am informed that the allocation for An Foras Forbartha, the National Institute for Physical Planning and Construction Research, for this year, 1981 — to be more relevant than to be discussing what we spent in 1980 after it was spent — have been reduced so severely that the institute will be able to carry on only a fraction of the research for which they were established. The quality and scope of the work they were doing is indicated in the Science Budget. I also understand that the national board have been commissioned to examine and report on the national institute. Such examinations and inquiries are welcomed by those concerned with the institute because of the skill, partially, and experience of the members of the national board. Among the terms of reference given to the board are provisions for investigating the possibility of an amalgamation with the Institute for Industrial Research and Standards.
I accept that the idea of a national institute was a good one and its achievement has been considerable although admittedly uneven. It is also recognised that inevitably the work of those in the institute tends to be dictated by the formation and experience of those there employed. There is, therefore, some dis-junction likely to arise between the nature of the work done by the national institute and the actual national need. Despite the fact that the work of the national institute has been satisfactory to those of the scientific, professional and industrial community who are, as it were, consumers of their work, it is desirable that such an inquiry should be conducted with the object of providing a clearer definition of the fields of activity of the national institute.
In so far as science policy is a deliberate attempt by the Government to finance, encourage and supply the scientific resources of the country in the best interests of national welfare, I welcome such a policy. The words "scientific resources" are being loosely, I understand, but acceptably, defined as trained research workers, laboratories and equipment. In so far as such a board and the production of such a policy is concerned with the creation of an organised relationship between policy objectives and scientific resources through public policy I certainly welcome it. It is also acceptable to me, and in a way rather obvious, that there is a mis-match between the skills coming out of the third level of education and the demand for them in the market place.
I am told that as a sort of general proportion that cannot be too wrong that the country will be able on present forecasts to give twice as many engineers and technicians employment. Such a mis-match should be changed. That is a most obvious piece of sense and that anyone should dissent from that for a moment seems to be unthinkable. I understand also that there is a time lag here before this adjustment can be effected based upon the percentages of those who do higher level mathematics and physics, boys and girls, and the numbers required to come out of the third level of education. Anyone who is going to have reserves about technology and about the approach which would suggest that the only kind of knowledge is scientific knowledge, such a person — I am one — cannot at all accept the position that he is a damned fool as well and wants, for example, not to correct such a mis-match as that. Of course I wish to correct that, and if I have criticism, as I shall have, it is not of any move to correct that.
Neither do I fail to subscribe to the proposition that it is reasonable that we should continue to have the objective of increasing economic growth, even with such reservations as one may have as to the composition of that growth. What is taken into the aggregation of it is not always of benefit to the consumer. We have only to look at the consumption of alcohol and pause and simply say — if that is creating national growth, if the more we drink the more alcohol is produced and if that gives rise to an increase in the growth figure, then I must be left thinking that in such circumstances it might be better if we had a little bit of economic shrinking instead of growing. In general I am prepared to let the proposition pass that it is the right and the opportune step for us to take as a people, in particular because any doubts or reservations I may have about science or about technology have nothing at all of a Manichean nature. It is not that I think there is anything wrong in increasing man's ability to control and satisfy his needs.
Therefore let me say with regard to my intellectual position, as I will pretentiously call it, that the progressive and purposeful mastery by man of his environment, which I take to be what technology is, is an entirely magnificent human achievement and his increased skill and use of ingenuity for mere survival is a matter for great praise. We must recognise that this mastery has progressively accelerated itself but, observe, with correspondingly accelerated social impact.
It is just at this point that I put in an important caveat. There seem to be so many "amens" to the proposition that change is desirable, but I must ask the question whether change is always desirable, change of any kind, change at any pace, change with any social effect. Who determines what the change is, or the rate at which it is to proceed? Are we men here in this island entirely subject to and in no way able to control the rate of change? Has man generally lost his ability to control his own use of the power which knowledge has put into his hand?
With regard to this science policy and the legislation which established the board which is submitting the science policy or the Science Budget, the understanding which has been properly placed on this piece of legislation is that the only kind of knowledge, the only kind of horizontal activity of an educational kind with which this board is concerned is activity of a kind designed to increase man's understanding scientifically and his power to apply his understanding for his own benefit. There is no definition of science in the legislation, and we have this fact that the word "science" is understood in a very different way in different cultures. In the absence of a definition it does not seem to me even to include social science. That is not to say that the national board is to be unconcerned with social matters, because the board's functions include the promotion and application of science and technology to economic and social developments. I should have thought that man's situation is such that it is enormously important for his welfare that all his own abilities be applied not merely in adding to his ability to develop existing resources directly but to preserve the resources and achievements of man due to an entirely different type of activity, due to an entirely different type of knowledge, to the knowledge and the activity involved in scientific learning and technical application. For example, a question which the Minister may be able to answer when he comes to reply — I would ask him not to reply immediately if he immediately knows the answer — is whether in this Science Budget I would find an acceptance of the proposition that change is so desirable that we should immediately develop all that remains of Wood Quay so as to clear once and for all out of the way that tradition-bound Norse inheritance. Would I find in this Science Budget a recognition of the enormous assistance which this scientific development is giving and has given to the discovery of man's achievements in the past?
For example, let us consider in our shared Judaic-Christian culture how little in terms of historical significance was known about the books of the Bible until these books were attacked as to their genuineness, historicity and general value by people who assumed when they were making the attack that this was superstitious nonsense which should have gone out when the last king was strangled by the gut of the last priest, or whatever the phrase was. Every other day we are learning new facts about the Bible and its background, for example, the extent to which other cultures were drawn on by the Bible and the extent to which Egyptian wisdom was drawn on to make up the Wisdom Book of the Bible. That we know these things is due to scientific achievement. It is due to the application of a scientific mind to the study of these things. We can understand from analysis of the texts and from general work of the mind that comes under the description of analytical. Certain sayings were truly dominical — truly those of Jesus of Nazareth — and others of them were certainly not or extremely likely not to have been but instead the memory of an oral culture, theologically interpreted, as to what in fact is meant.
That we have this degree of comprehension and can reflect back on these texts in the way which is now possible is due to this kind of application of knowledge.
Could the Minister tell me, for example, whether the department of Hebraic studies, if that is what they call it, or oriental studies or whatever it may be, is within the Science Budget? To learn how to interpret these texts is to add enormously, I would argue, to man's welfare because man's welfare is not merely to be found in the extent to which man's power has increased. I am interested to know what the answer is. For example, are the activities of the people in the National Library, throughout the National Museum and the Office of Public Works regarded as scientific? Is their type of knowledge being brought within the scope of this budget and, if it is not, why not? If it is not, ought it not to be?
I do not see much point in standing up here, particularly so late in the year, and missing, perhaps forever, the opportunity to address the Seanad on this subject and speaking my full mind, as best I can express that mind, on our human institutions. In a previous debate I mentioned what Karl Heims observed with regard to man. Let us take the estimate of the whole of man's time on earth, as best known to man with all the power of man's resources to discover, and the length of the life of the earth. If we take the time during which man has stood on the earth — I am talking about prehistory as well as historical times, from the time he was on the top of the tree until he got into a traffic jam in Ranelagh — as a proportion of the life of the earth, it is as 22 seconds are to 24 hours. A second has not passed since the Normans came.
Man alone of all the animals on this earth has been able consistently to subdue his environment for his own purpose. So much is this true that people who have, to use the Shakespearian phrase "a craven fear of being great" now blame the Judaic civilisation for the extent of man's knowledge and for man's ability now to destroy this earth on which he has been standing for 22 seconds. They blame all this on the Judaic civilisation. Yet man has been able so to subdue nature to turn his environment from one of co-operation with nature to one which is manmade, where countless millions live totally remote from nature. In what text, in what words, in what book do we find the best explanation for this astonishing fact, apart from the blind chance concept? When one considers phrases from Genesis such as "let us make man in our own image", "be fruitful and multiply", "fill the earth and conquer it", maybe the critics of Judiac civilisation have a point. Certainly man has filled the earth and conquered it, but was that all he was to do? The words of Genesis are: "In the image of God he created him; male and female he created them." In the image of God — these words came into my mind last night and I used them last night as I looked at a boy on "Today Tonight" being interviewed. With an awe-inspiring kind of photography the boy described how he rescued people in this appalling tragedy which we all share. I thought of these words as I looked at him and I thought to myself that Genesis was not wrong when it recorded "indeed it was very good when He created man on the sixth day". Indeed it was very good to look at a creature whose face still showed he was made in the image of God.
With regard to those 22 seconds, I simply cannot note the fact and pass yawningly on to the next debate, the next drink or whatever it may be, because it seems to me in the enterprise of living here, however philosophers may choose to organise their language with regard to the matter, man has been a junior partner in the enterprise and is still very much a junior partner in the enterprise. May I give someone else's adaptation of words of St. Augustine: "Human existence makes sense if being grants what it commands"— that is to say, grants the power to man to do the things that man's conscience derived from being suggests to him he ought to do. It makes sense only if the being which man shares with the rest of the earth grants him the power to do those things which his sharing in being impels him to do and if there are resources beyond our human resources to help us to fulfil the claims which their very existence lays upon us.
One of the things that inescapably our very existence now lays upon us is to use our freedom with an enormous sense of our responsibility for the consequences of the way we use it. It is not simply good enough to recommend change, just only change. We must look to begin with at some of the consequences of the change we have already effected. Is not one of the purposes of the activity of the national board to use — and it is very right that it should use — our resources, to dispose of them best to repair the damage already done by technology to our environment, to lessen its damage as we continue our development?
Should we not use the knowledge which this particular mould has given us to discover what messages we can learn from the past? These 22 seconds have included the Greek miracle, the extraordinary spread of knowledge, the discovery of great religions in the sixth century before Christ, only 2,500 years ago. What part of our 22 seconds would that be? This is a point of time historically when what we do will enormously determine the future. Are we simply going to fall down and adore, dedicate ourselves to the humanity of which we are all simply members? This is just another word for idolatry; that is simply to adore our own image. The great religions are all there to teach us, now that we have this enormous power, how best to use it.
I am sorry that I have to go on a little more; if I only had got the lot of you as students I would adjourn the lecture until tomorrow morning at nine o'clock. I have not unfortunately, nor am I likely to have, but I have to draw attention to the fact that there are different levels of thinking. All that we have been talking about — science — is but one of them. At this level of thinking, the importance of which, incidentally, some quite modern philosophers are very critical, we, the "knowing" people, people concerned to know more, are looking at an object which we observe, experiment with, measure, demonstrate, and with which we show connections. We break it up into all its conceivable parts or as many as we can. It never, in fact, exhausts the number of possible divisions of that object. In this activity we subject the object to ourselves. Man, the knower, makes himself the master of what he knows about the object. That has been such a great contributor to human welfare.
Karl Stern, a philosopher cum psychiatrist said that:
The present burst of human creativeness has all the earmarks of the greatest phases of civilisation—and all of that which is morally and aesthetically good.
There is something about technology which is related to the classical and objective in the history of art. There is about this kind of "making", say, of a jet plane, some of the same creative anonymity which went with the making of medieval architecture. In the light of the Genesis quotation which I gave, Wyndham Lewis, another modern writer, is profoundly interesting. He wrote in Encounter in 1963 an article in which he said:
machines such as aeroplanes with a dynamic shape develop in accordance with a law of efficient evolution as absolute as that determining the shape of the tiger, the wasp, the swallow.
Man has begun to make creatures and his ability to make creatures has been a matter of his development in the last few seconds of his time through his first level of knowing. The second level of knowing is the kind of knowing that we have of each other where some degree of participation is required: someone speaks; someone replies; each has to listen. I have the advantage at the moment, but that could change quickly. Here, the kind of knowing does not involve any dissection or analysis. I do not have to know any Senator by finding I have strangled him. But it is a knowledge of an enormously important kind because it is the kind of knowledge which is to be found in the humanities. Where else will we get, if not from the humanities or the great religions or indeed man's reflection on his own situation, the ability to discharge our present responsibilities to prove ourselves to have been worth choosing, a people worth designing.
This is another level of understanding, and it is there even when I will read someone's memoirs and when my grand-children will read someone's memoirs because for my grandchildren to understand someone else's memoirs will involve some degree of participation and some degree of sympathetic understanding of the subject under consideration. The only thing in Mr. Paddy Lynch's lecture with which I did not agree is the suggestion that we cannot learn from experience.
I am only giving one character's analysis of the different types of knowing but I do not expect Senators to be tied to it although it is useful for my purposes. The third level of knowing is essentially of a meditative character, where the person learning is not gassing on like I am but is actually waiting and listening, trying to understand the meaning of this awful tragedy in Dublin city, trying to understand what no scientist will ever understand, the sort of significance that an artist will see in a tree or a flower, where the object is the active agent creating the knowledge and the person is depending on learning by his eye, nose or any of his faculties where the knowledge is, as Heidegger says, a kind of union. It is not dissection or analysis; it is not a question of two beings participating with each other in a conversation. It is a question of one person on his own, looking, hearing, listening, trying to understand.
W.H. Dilthey, who wrote in the eighteen eighties, wrote this in 1883:
ever since the ascent of the mechanical sciences it has been the function of poetry to uphold the great experience of life in nature, that mysterious experience which is forever closed to all analysis. Poetry protects all that which can be experienced but not explained so that it will not vanish under the dissecting operations of an abstract science.
I have nothing against the national board or their works. It is obvious from my remarks that I do not object to the achievements of the physical science. I am just afraid of our people being misled through too late an adjustment to our human circumstances. Perhaps earlier we should have recognised the need for some shift in our educational ballast.
The future is here for our young people. That is welcome and in no way criticised but I am afraid for them and for all of us if the word goes out from the Seanad and from every other body of people who are supposed to know anything, that the only important thing now is to train one's sons to be engineers, physiologists, anatomists or whatever. Even in relation to those children who are to pursue such things. I am afraid we will leave them thinking that only scientific knowledge matters. Of course it does not. If man is to be a full human being he will have to be much more than a physical scientist. If he is not going to be a person who will do damage in life he will have to be much more than that, because he will be a very powerful man.
In the moral arena the great polarisation is between power, which is an addiction, and love, which is a call. An addiction is a terrible thing for a human to experience. It is of enormous importance for all of us to try to recollect that there are experiences other than the experiences to be gathered from the kind of work which possibly interests us most and that there are dangers even in the development of one's mind along one particular line. I find that when one goes buzzing along with some piece of business analysis it takes something of an effort to move one's mind away from the enormous satisfactions to be derived from subduing all that material, understanding its complexity, organising it complex though it is, so that one can achieve with it the purpose one has in mind. The enormous importance, if one's life is to be full of trying to reflect upon one's experience, and the enormous importance for us, as people who are for the time being in public life, is to try to teach our people that they have to learn from the traditions that are good and that there are still emormously valuable traditions.
I hope nobody with the duty of looking after advertising of any product will take offence from what I am now going to say. One of the things that most needs to be demanded by a modern man who wants to be a moral man as well, is that the science board asks that someone carries out research on the effects of a rejection of our cultural tradition caused by the means of persuasion. I do not understand why people whose business it is to talk about economic growth always seem to be surprised at social disturbance. They always seem to say "Why are they not satisfied? They obviously have 20 per cent more than they had before. Why shouldn't they be happy?" How could they be happy when every time they turn on their TV sets they are told "This is the way to live"? You have to be in the Canaries at Christmas and you are just a fool if you are living modestly in the same kind of circumstances that your father lived in and the only thing that matters is middle class manners. One of the great messages I get for all modern development is to do more of what Senator Whitaker does in the preservation, for example, of our Gaelic culture. Every time we put £1 into advertising we should put another £1 into preserving our traditions and understanding them better. Were it not for the prescription of the Constitution I would put another £1 in showing those involved in religion what it actually means.
Hear, hear.
That is not meant to be as nasty as it sounds. The "hear, hear" worries me.
In conclusion I will give two quotations, one of them from Ecclesiastics. In all sincerity I felt that the Government were quite right in cancelling the ArdFheis because it showed a soundness in the party, which I am glad to see, and a recognition of more soundness in the people than I was necessarily thinking, in parties, not forgetting that
there is a season for everything, a time for giving birth, a time for dying, a time for tears, a time for laughter
and so on. The second is in Chapter 28 of Job, a marvellous poem. It begins with a description which, if one regards the time in which it was written, is an extraordinary piece of vision in the light of what man now knows. It begins with a description of the astonishing technical abilities of Homo Faber. It goes on to say that man's mastery still does not hide the bitter truth that the ultimate secret is hidden. It says starting at verse number 12:
But tell me, where does wisdom come from?
Where is understanding to be found? The road to it is still unknown to me. It is not to be found in the land of the living
‘It is not in me', says the abyss ‘Nor here', replies the sea It cannot be bought with solid gold Nor paid for with any weight of silver.
God alone has traced its path And found out where it lives.
And he said to me "Wisdom? it is fear of the Lord
Understanding? it is avoidance of evil."
We have before us an historic document as this debate has indicated in that it is the first attempt to produce a Science Budget here and indeed it is perhaps one of the first in the world. There are relatively few States producing such a type of document. It is a most welcome and timely production and it is particularly relevant to us because, as indicated in the Minister's speech, whether we like it or not, growth is in fact very closely related to growth in technology.
It is difficult to follow the very erudite and stimulating address which we have had from Senator FitzGerald but I absolutely agree with the trend of some of his comments when he was suggesting that growth is not just purely a matter of technology or that growth should not be measured purely in material terms or that we should not change simply for the sake of change and indeed that there is much in science which we cannot measure. In fact, by definition science is that which measures or relates to measurement or the study of that which can be measured. As Senator FitzGerald rightly indicates there is much of importance in this life, perhaps the most vital matters in life, which are incapable of measurement. It was a pleasure to listen to the address of the Senator opposite.
This report is historic for us in that it brings home to us that we are very much dependent and likely to become more dependent in the future on developments in technology, developments which we must attempt on the one hand to use and on the other hand to control. Unfortunately within these developments there are many disquieting aspects, aspects which Senator FitzGerald commented upon in his speech. We are congratulating ourselves with a good deal of justification on the new technological industries which we are attracting to this country. Certainly for employment and for the development of the country such industries are essential. Yet, I wonder have we faced up to or considered the implications of these industries. It is not sufficient in itself that we should find ourselves the site of a high growth industry—the silicon industry is one obvious one—if that growth is simply related to the provision of employment alone and if the jobs involved are simply those of an assembly line nature however modern in their appearance or however novel, and if the research and development associated with these industries is not at all being conducted in this country, if the people involved in the industry are simply being used as an advanced pair of hands. Effectively such an industry by its nature is a multinational industry and if for, some reason or another the parent company decided to close down its plant here we could be left with nothing but three or four thousand people perhaps trained to do nothing else other than the type of technological process involved in that industry.
In congratulating ourselves on bringing these industries here, very understandably and reasonably we have overlooked the perhaps adverse implications of such industries unless we make sure that our own people are learning aspects of technology, and are trained in jobs which have a continuing value within society and within industry so that there would be some hope at least of indigenous Irish industry developing in a given town or city in relation to microelectronic silicons, pharmaceuticals or whatever it may be, that if an industry shifted some other firm could come in, not necessarily in exactly the same line, but using the technology and technologists involved and giving them employment. In other words, these industries must grow roots here and they must be based on technology.
Here again we talked a lot about training people but I am not aware that we have any real knowledge at all about how many people we require to train, what we require to train them in, how many types of technology, and how many people in each technology. We have very inadequate information regarding our technological manpower requirements. Indeed, one of the great benefits of this Science Budget document that we have here is that, in however gentle a manner, it reminds us of this gap and indicates that this is a very essential matter to which we should attend very rapidly.
Another perhaps more general aspect in relation to production of this Science Budget is that it raises a very fundamental topic of the relationship within our civil service between the administrative and technical branches. We have been very fortunate here. We do not realise or appreciate how lucky we are in the very high calibre of the civil service which we have at all levels. We have dedicated excellent men and women of high intelligence, ability and devotion, but to some extent these very traditions may perhaps relate to an attitude which we must conserve, an attitude towards life where perhaps we are not fully appreciative of change. This has happened very much in the British civil service, where there is an appalling gap between the administrative civil service and the technical civil service and there is very little communication between them. I served on various committees across the water and I saw this very closely at first hand quite apart from reading and hearing many accounts of it. One of the very pleasing things which comes out of this Science Budget is the evidence in it that already there is a considerable good interaction between our administrative civil service and the new technical civil service represented by the National Board for Science and Technology who are of course found in increasing numbers within the various departments of the civil service. This is absolutely essential, and it will need an awful lot of consideration on both sides. It must be very difficult for an administrative civil service to appreciate the different approach and the different aspects of someone who basically has come up in a scientific or technological discipline. Equally, it is very easy for a technologist or a scientist to be impatient with the very necessary disciplines involved in the proper administration of the civil service. I am delighted to see that evidently a good relationship is beginning to develop. It is most important that this be emphasised and encouraged in every possible way. It is a very long process, a process which in many ways we have not really begun.
If we look at our various planning documents of one sort or another—and it is a criticism which I have of some of our economic planning documents—there is very little technological input into these planning documents. The tendency has very much been for our economists, respected and excellent economists though they may be, to ignore technology. There are good reasons for this. It is very difficult to allow for it. The changes in technology are so rapid, it is so difficult to quantify them and it is so difficult with any degree of assurance to consider their likely effects that it is very tempting for an economic document to ignore the technological implications of the economic policies proposed or the technological infrastructure related to the economic policies proposed. I very sincerely hope that we will gradually get integration here between our technical civil service and our administrative civil service, and particularly in the preparation of long-term and short-term planning documents.
In relation to technology a lot of the planning has to be relatively long-term and, indeed, in a democratic system in which our terms of office have a maximum of five years, from a technological or scientific aspect this is a ridiculously short times. Yet the tendency must be there to budget for annual or bi-annual or relatively short periods. A very valiant effort is made in this document to subdivide, to analyse and generally to inform us on the technological expenditure of Government Departments. The main thing about it is that it is making this effort and that in future Science Budgets we will have a much more detailed and probably a much more exact and comprehensible account of technological expenditures.
There are many problems involved in that. Take the very simple one of a person employed in a given Department. Do you classify him as coming under the technology, the Science Budget, or some other budget? That can be extremely difficult to decide. A very worthwhile effort has been made here. There are still some enormous figures which one might query one way or another. There is a figure of £128 million for current expenditure on science and technology. When we analyse that, we find that a sum of £46 million relates to the HEA. One wonders in what sense is this really science and technology. In the body of the report there is very little discussion on this.
I am not being adversely critical of the report. It is an excellent report. I am merely drawing attention to the fact that we are at a very early stage with this type of report.
Again under health expenditure there is the vast figure, in relative terms to what we are discussing here, of £19 million for the Department of Health. Most of this seems to be related to continuing hospital expenditure and such matters as biochemical analysis, and so on. It is a very considerable expenditure of funds. Does it really fit into the sort of document we have in front of us? If it is to be included — and there are some arguments for it — then certainly it deserves a much more considerable degree of analysis within the document.
Another aspect which we must consider is the inter-relationship between our various research facilities, between the IIRS, the MRC, An Foras Forbartha, and so on. There seems to be developing a very good relationship between the Board for Science and Technology and these other bodies. This needs encouragement and support. An area where integration is required is between the IDA and the National Board for Science and Technology. We would all agree that the IDA have done a magnificent job over the past decade or so. They are an institution which must be looked at constantly and considered and brought up to date. The experience we have had with the IDA has been extremely satisfactory, and it has now been copied by many other countries.
However, to continue on in a technological age it is essential that there should be a great deal more input into the IDA as to the technological implications of any industries which they are attracting or hoping to attract. For us this is an absolute essential. There is no way that we can compete with other countries on the basis of large volume or cheap labour. We have got to do it on the basis of effective technology which is in the very forefront of that technology. With all our civilisation, all our growth, and all the humanities and aspects of the humanities about which I would so wholeheartedly agree with Senator FitzGerald, unless we can finance these, unless we can provide the growth, the dynamism, the continuing employment and opportunities, we will not have the opportunity to support the many other civilised virtues and aspects of life which I would hope Senator FitzGerald and I would join together in welcoming and hoping will continue.
Like Senator Conroy I should like to suggest that this first Science Budget is a very good document. I appreciate a good deal of its content. To be quite frank. I do not think it would be within my capacity to comment on all aspects of the Science Budget and the way the expenditure is laid out. I chose to do what I thought the Minister might suggest in his speech and I picked out certain areas of it. One area I have some interest in is An Foras Forbartha. From making inquiries my belief is that the Science Budget in general is a very good document. It is a very necessary and a very good report. It goes without saying that it is essential to look at it in the sense of a current commitment pertaining to our social and economic progress.
An Foras Forbartha have not been treated very well having regard to their importance as an institution. It is only natural that I should take exception to this. I looked at the Science Budget to see how they are treating an area of great national importance. They are a physical planning body and a national institution. In 1980, for example, they received an allocation of £1,987,000 and, in 1981, from the information I have gleaned, their allocation will be somewhere in the region of £2 million. Since we have to try to keep pace with the rate of change in jobs and in costs, and so on, it seems to me that An Foras Forbartha are not getting a fair deal. The inflation rate for 1980-81 is 18.5 per cent and, naturally, somebody like me would want to know why this national institution are not getting full value relative to the 1980 figures. In 1980 terms they will receive £1,640,000 as against £1,987,000. This means that in real money terms they are getting £347,000 less than they got in 1980.
In the planning area it is reasonable to suggest that the inflation rate from the point of view of scientific equipment, and so on, may be higher than 18½ per cent. Consequently my figure might be wrong. It could be in the region of 30 per cent. For that reason I feel a little more concerned about this area than I do about other areas. I did not have an opportunity to examine the Science Budget in detail and, for that reason, I am making the argument on the basis of 18½ per cent inflation and not suggesting it might be 30 per cent inflation. It could be that it was but I cannot prove that. I have not gone into it deeply enough to make that suggestion.
The reduction in grant aid is so severe that in 1981 this institution will be able to carry out only a fraction of the research which it was established to carry out. I do not think this is a very effective way to deal with an important national institution who have gained great recognition not only in Ireland but in Europe also. I do not know who is responsible for deciding how the Science Budget should be broken down. Obviously the National Board for Science and Technology have a say in it, but whether there are any other pressures on it I do not know. This is a little disturbing. I do not think it should happen, because An Foras Forbartha are not a State-aided limited company. They do not trade for profit and they were not set up to trade for profit. They are a State-aided research company and they are not obliged to remain solvent. That was not their function as I remember it. They are not there to provide revenue for the Exchequer. They are involved in intensive research and have become an institute of national importance and of international distinction. They are the property of the Irish people, to provide them with a service to look after planning and the environment.
Perhaps some citizens do not bother to look at these reports but we, as representatives, have an obligation to look into certain areas and to take an interest in them. If there are suggestions of undue interference we must talk about that. If somebody is knocking what the Irish people believe should be encouraged and cherished then we should say to them "hands off". A reduction in this type of service is a harassment. It limits the progress which can be made by this institution, which was set up for a specific purpose.
We have institutions which we all stand up from time to time to eulogise. We speak about the great progress they are making. I am not just talking about just one institution. We have praised An Foras Forbartha before and the great work they do. If we take money from them and do not allow them to perform the function they were set up to perform, this stultifies them. They are an internationally recognised organisation in the area of research.
I have been informed that the National Board for Science and Technology have been instructed to examine and report on this institution. The terms of reference, as I understand them — and the Minister can tell me whether I am right or wrong — include the possibility of a merger between this institution and the IIRS. If it is true that eventually a merger may result — I am not sold on the value of such a merger — I would be inclined to look on it more as an economic measure than a measure of union in the whole question of research and development. To me it would not appear to be a proper union. If I look at it like that, many other people may see it as an expediency. At a time when we are talking about the advent of science and technology in the interests of greater productivity and higher technical growth in industries, and so on, it would appear to me that this is a matter of expediency rather than policy. I am open to argument on this point but I believe these observations have to be made. Perhaps they will provoke some discussion.
Physical planning and research are of interest to all sections of the community. We have only to look at some of the developments which have taken place over the years in various schemes to decide not to give anyone any medals for physical development. I will not deal with that area at this time. An Foras Forbartha have been and will continue to be of national importance. They hold an honoured place among the European nations as being one of the best research organisations in Europe. I do not know whether the Minister is indifferent — I am not suggesting he could examine every particular aspect of it — but the onus is on him and the Government to protect this institution. Indifference could have been expressed in two ways: first in the drastic cutbacks in the money allocation, reducing it by £347,000 on the 1980 figure; and, secondly, by preparing the ground and sowing the seed for a merger between the IIRS and An Foras Forbartha. Then we are talking about economic grounds without having any regard for the best interests of the nation, when we appoint people to examine matters, if they are given terms of reference, which might lead in certain directions. We must be concerned with improving the activities of national institutions, not on the basis of economic expediency but on the basis of how a better policy can be arrived at.
I do not want to be taken to task because of some of the remarks I have made. I admit that I did not have much time to get to the heart of this Science Budget. I have a feeling about An Foras Forbartha and I have spoken about it in a specific way just as someone who had a feeling about the health boards, or education, would speak about them. Interference with An Foras Forbartha for reason of economic expediency is bound to make the institution less effective. They are essential to the needs of the Irish people, and embarking on any course of action which might make them less effective cannot be condoned. They are so important to the needs of the Irish people that they should have been given serious consideration by all Governments. I do not speak about this Government in particular.
Years ago they should have considered in a more serious way how the institution could have been embraced and protected. It is our job to give national institutions like this a role to play and protect that role in a very effective way, to enable them to confine themselves to the part they were set up to play. Waste and inefficiency crop up when we set up an institution, give it our blessing, give it a specific task, and then, through lack of policing, lack of consideration, allow it to go in a different way. This may have happened. I am not suggesting it did to An Foras Forbartha, but we have not done very much if they did drift away from their terms of reference. We have not done much to put them back on the rails.
We must now ensure that the problem is identified, not only in this case but also in other cases. An Foras Forbartha are a national institution for physical planning, not a branch of the IIRS or a body attached thereto. No Government would have consented to the establishment of an institution of this nature unless they recognised the absolute need for this type of State-aided research. In establishing such a body they would have said: "This is your field. It is a field of national necessity in a very specific way". While looking at the interests of the nation as a whole they would say: "We are setting up this institution". It is politically valuable for a Government to consent to a State-aided research institution being set up.
For that reason we have to be very careful not to reduce the moneys made available to them, and there should be no undue inference leading to a change in the specific purpose for which they were set up. I am not suggesting it is all the fault of one Government. It may be that the institution went a little bit astray and, in looking at this Science Budget, it is necessary to find out if they have gone outside their terms of reference. If there has been a departure from the specific task they were set, we should look at another area where there may be a lack of co-ordination. More emphasis might be given to the fact that there might not be enough co-ordination between their scientists and the various advisory bodies with whom they are associated. We should endeavour to have a truly representative institute representing the scientific, professional and industrial community. If there is a lack of co-ordination between the scientists and the other bodies associated, our task is to get them back on the rails. We should say: "This is your job. This is your specific task. You have let things develop a little and get out of hand. Come back to what you should be doing". We should not do it by making cut-backs in this vital area.
Most of these institutions need guidance and can get useful guidance with proper co-ordination. The guidance is there. The people are there. The assocated bodies are there. So are the scientists who can work together. They can work within their original terms of reference without becoming an aspect or a tool of industrial research. That has to be protected and watched. There is no need for a merger that is not going to be a union. We criticise people in a very hard way when they enter into certain situations that are not in union and that, in the final analysis, cause nothing but difficulties and problems.
If I am right in what I say about the terms of reference, there is no need for the merger because I do not believe it would be a union. It would be an economic proposition. The National Board for Science and Technology will find, through real consultations with the various bodies, that there is good acceptable advice on the whole question of the institute's field of activities. In this way they can help to give An Foras Forbartha freedom to operate in the field of activity for which they were set up. They can also see that there is constant and adequate grant-in-aid to ensure the essential services in a developing country. This is our problem. We are a developing country and we cannot afford, in any area of our science and technology, to start hacking off a very vital area of physical planning.
The budget allocation for 1981 should be thought out again. I do not think this is the way to deal with the problems that may be suspected to have emanated from An Foras Forbartha. If things have gone off the right track there is a way to deal with them, but dealing with mergers that are not real mergers in the true sense of the advancement of science and technology but rather of economic cutbacks and long term economic propositions is not the way to deal with it. They are not a limited training company responsible for making a profit or returning revenue. They belong to the people. If there is another way to deal with the problem we should look at it in a particular way, and I urge that we should look again at the whole question of the reduction in the amounts being provided for An Foras Forbartha.
To leave out An Foras Forbartha would suggest that they are not one of the economic, social, technological and scientific sections. It should be emphasised that that is not correct, because I think they are. For that reason, there should not be any cutback in real money terms against the figure they received last year because they cannot provide the service or embark on the job they were given to do.
Earlier today we heard Senator FitzGerald's contribution. He raised some issues about the role of scientific thinking in our society and the dangers that might come from developing a society which was too much concerned with subjects linked to technology. In no way do I deny him his right to take that line in this debate — I am sorry that he is not here to hear me — but it strikes me as being typical of the Irish reaction, which is instinctively to knock technology without realising that we are doing it, faint praise followed by qualifications that we must make sure we do not lose our souls while we learn how to think a little more scientifically.
The subject for today's debate — the Science Budget — is an important departure, a significant step, attempting to have a co-ordinated and integrated view of the role of science and technology in the Irish scene and helping to develop a strategy for the development of the appropriate scientific and technological expertise required for our modern society. However it might titillate us in terms of poetic quotations or otherwise it has nothing to do with a Science Budget.
The Minister said in his opening statement that the Science Budget is a mechanism which allows a particular institution of State — the NBST — to look at all the institutions of State, to see how the State's resources are deployed over those institutions and to assess if that deployment of resources will bring us into the end of this decade — into the nineties — in terms of our need for development and giving employment to our growing population. This is what it is about. It is an instrument of national strategy in the sense that it provides the information that will allow national planners — the Government and the institutions which support the Government — to think out how the resources of the nation are going to be deployed across the activities of the nation with a view to providing a fully employed economy. This is the first time that this has been done, and therefore the novelty of it is exciting, amongst other things, but it took time.
A Senator said economists do not take technology sufficiently into account in their planning. I am not a great supporter of economists as such, but I would like to pay public tribute to the work of Professor Patrick Lynch, who was very much involved in the development of the review of science policy in the latter part of the sixties. That work and the support of the OECD led eventually to setting up the National Board for Science and Technology and, ultimately, to the production of this Science Budget. It is fair to say that at least one economist made a big contribution, and I would like to place my appreciation on the record.
I was privileged to work at a few seminars in the sixties when these matters were being discussed and I can look back on them today and relish the fact that we have got to this point and also be disturbed that it took so long to do what was obvious. If one wants to integrate and co-ordinate activities which are normally distributed across specialist in anything one needs a co-ordinating mechanism and the NBST is a co-ordinating mechanism, and the Science Budget as one of their statutory responsibilities is a mechanism for doing this too. I wish them well in the future.
Nationally it is important to recognise that in the past we were a nation that put money into science and technology. An excellent paper by the chairman of the National Board for Science and Technology, read to the Royal Dublin Society on 28 January to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Royal Dublin Society, accorded to the role of Maples, who was on the original Royal Dublin Society, the role of Kane and the work he did to suggest a policy for the development of our national resources. One aspect which intrigued me was his reference to Jonathan Swift, one of our most distinguished writers. That writer, far from being locked into some convergent way of thinking based on his appreciation of science and technology, was able to produce Gulliver's Travels. When he was talking about the scientific achievements of the Lilliputians he said:
they spent the greatest Part of their Lives in observing Celestial Bodies, which they do by the Assistance of Glasses, far excelling ours in Goodness. ...They have likewise discovered two lesser Stars, or Satellites, which revolve about Mars; whereof the innermost is distant from the Centre of the primary Planet exactly three of his Diameters, and the outermost five; the former revolves in the Space of ten Hours, and the latter in Twenty-one and an Half; so that the Squares of their periodical Times, are very near in the same Proportion with the Cubes of their Distance in the Centre of Mars;
That was said by the man who wrote Gullivers' Travels. I do not see his intellectual powers in terms of the humanities in any way marred by the experiences of mathematics and astronomy.
We should forget about that and get on with developing our industry which is crying out for good technologists. We are falling behind in the production of the technologies required and, in certain areas, we are falling behind in the technological research required to support the arena we are going into. I could not resist going into that subject.
Another example of that was the thinking of Dr. McLoughlin at the setting up of the ESB. There was a man putting forward a creative idea for harnessing one of our natural resources and he had a hell of a time getting that notion across. If we have potential McLoughlins around in other technologies and sciences, let us support, help and encourage them. Let us not get locked into discussions about whether we are going to forget how to write poetry. If we look at the figures in this report we will see that the percentage of students taking higher mathematics in the leaving certificate, which are needed for certain science and technology subjects is way down — less than 10 per cent. The percentage taking physics is 14 per cent and chemistry 18 per cent. There is no fear of the Irish forgetting how to write poetry. We will always do that because it comes naturally to us. What we have to do is to help to develop some other skills and then we will have a balance and that is what we require.
In relation to strategy — I accept this is a budget not a strategy because it is giving information — I would like to see more emphasis on what the NBST think should be the deployment of these resources. That is their statutory function. It certainly does not hit me in a way that is easily comprehensible to the busy politician. Being something of a technologist, I should find it easier to do so but I still find it a little difficult.
I could pick out and develop the general aspects of this topic but I think they have been developed well enough already. I want to take one or two specific points in regard to the teaching of mathematics and the encouragement of higher mathematics in the schools. I must add my voice to the need for a better approach here. We are falling down on that job. We are not encouraging young people sufficiently, and despite the new methods of teaching and the new programme learning books which have been made available, we are still not winning. This is an area where the NBST, the functional organisation with the horizontal responsibility in this regard, and, obviously the Department of Education must take a view on it, should do more.
I am appalled that they have included references to the development of technicians and the way this is progressing. Everybody knows my interest in this area and that I am biased so I will not elaborate on it. The National Council for Educational Awards have a promotional role by statute. It is important that that role should operate and the NBST might be able to work hand in hand with them to ensure that the right programmes are being allocated in the right places and that specialisms are being developed. This is happening already in the sense that the RTC in Athlone will develop a specialism in plastics and the RTC in Drogheda might develop a specialism in certain kinds of electronics. This trend should be encouraged, not discouraged, and if it can be promoted through the NCEA's promotional role, then the NBST might be the pump-primer that would ensure they get the money for that purpose because there might be a tendency to squeeze on it.
In terms of developing centres of excellence — and I am referring to the regional technical colleges and NIHEs, we all know about Limerick and the way Dublin is coming on — there is a recommendation in this Science Budget that there should be a centre of expertise, or a council for telecommunications and that we should specialise in this area. I am not sure if I am missing something here or if this has been done already, but I would support some unit which would specialise in the communications area. In our time this means linking the technology of computers and the technology of electronics and radio propagation and the technology of lasers and optical fibres. We should have some expertise in that area. I am not saying we are going to beat the big countries putting millions and millions into this, but I am saying we should have people ready to do the technological transfer when it is required.
The Joint Committee on EEC legislation looked at energy recently. We discovered in our studies on trips I made to Brussels and follow-ups at home that one area of energy development is being overlooked, that is wave energy development. I make no excuse for spending three or four minutes on this subject which is barely mentioned in the Science Budget.
Biomass is mentioned and we are getting money from the EEC to carry out research in this area. As a country with a lot of expertise and which has done a lot of research through An Foras Talúntais—excellent work done by Dr. Walsh and his team over the years—it is clear that going into biomass made sense, but there is the point that we are also the country which is potentially, excluding possibly Scotland, in the greatest position to derive energy from waves. It is in the latitude 40º to 60º that wave energy is at its best. In following this up in Brussels, and looking at their policy in relation to the expenditure of EEC money on research, I found that not one single penny was being spent on wave energy research. It is not that the amount being spent was too little, but nothing was being spent.
The conclusion arrived at by the Committee—and this is also mentioned in the Report circulated in normal form but which has not been printed yet—was that the EEC research people with a background in the coal and mining and nuclear sides tended to think of wave energy as being a bit way out. When I tell you that something like 30 miles of western seacoast, properly harnessed with the right technology, could produce 80 megawatts of electricity, you can see the potential. If we had something like 160 miles of coastline harnessed, it could produce as much energy as the ESB's full capacity today. That is the theory, but turning it into practice means a tremendous investment in the technology required. My point is that if we do not spend one penny on it, if we do not take the first steps, we will never reach the end of the road. The ESB are investing a certain amount of money to have access to the results of research being carried out in Japan. I do not think that is sufficient. Through the Science Budget, through our strategy for development of this area and through our Department of Energy, we should try to influence the EEC to spend a lot of money in this area and to spend it in Ireland, developing the necessary technology. This will probobly take 15 years, so there is no pay-off in it, no immediate votes in it, but there are immediate jobs. There could be immediate jobs in the west for technologists developing over time the techniques and methods that might help to draw this energy from the waves. That is my case. There is nothing in the Science Budget about this. I hope that when the 1981 budget comes out we will see something in it about the extraction of energy from waves.
There is research going on in Belfast on a scheme known as the Belfast Buoys, and there is some laboratory research in Cork on a scheme developed by Dr. Peter McCabe. The money being spent on this is miniscule, only a few thousand pounds. The money being spent in this area by the UK Government, as opposed to EEC moneys, is only £3 million. The rate of development depends on the humour of the professors doing the research. If we are going to crack this problem we would want to do something like what had to be done to get people to the moon. There we had a huge project, with a massive team working on it, and over time somebody walked on the moon. If we want to take energy out of the waves, we would have to do something like that.
The interesting thing about this, from our point of view, is that we are the country uniquely placed to benefit from such research whereas Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg are not going to be switched on about it because they do not have waves. The other advantage that I take for granted and did not mention, is that this is a renewable energy. We are not consuming locked up hydrocarbons which will not be renewed. The source of its energy is the sun and that is not going to run out in our time. I do not make that specific point about the Science Budget in a negative way. It is a positive thing in that the Science Budget shows up what is missing and I hope to see something about it in next year's report.
Finally, I would like to give this advice. The people involved should not get too locked up trying to get their measuring frames dead right. Obviously, they are using an approach to take a horizontal look across expenditures which other Departments are incurring. That point should be made. I detected in a few earlier contributions that people saw this budget as funds coming from the NBST. All the NBST are doing is looking at funds being spent in other Departments and through other Votes. The only moneys involved here are moneys for the NBST, plus possibly some project money. We talk about £170 million, but this sum is not at the disposal of NBST. It is the amount they are monitoring. They make some suggestions about how it is being spent and make some recommendations about how it might be spent in future. One of the points they are making is that these allocations should be made over a number of years, not over one year, and there should be multi-year budgetting for this type of project. One cannot start to carry out research in one year, stop it at the end of the year and start something else. It takes a few years. I would advise the people concerned not to get too locked up in methodology, because they may be very efficient but not so effective. Missing wave energy is one example of what I am getting at. If anyone says I am up in the air about wave energy because the technology has not gone far enough to spend money on it, then I say nonsense, If we do not start now we will never get there.
To come back to the effect all this will have on our poor young people who will grow up getting locked into technology, I think there is another way to look at this. Perhaps Senator West may have something to say on this line. There is room for the study of the philosophy of science and there is not enough of that happening. We could build into the school curriculum a study of what scientific method and knowing is about. It is not about nuts and bolts and electrons hopping off cathode ray oscilloscopes. The way of thinking that goes with science is in itself a beautiful study, and I recommend it to Senators.
I welcome this report and join with the other Senators who view it as something pioneering and unique in the development of our services. Its main purpose is to try to get our act together, as it were, to give us a kind of overview of State expenditure in the whole area of science and technology and allow us to see that expenditure and that activity in relation to the whole body politic, the economic, social and, indeed, political reverberations of it. It is a good time when the taxpayer, who is already over-burdened, gets a chance at least to see what the priorities of the Government are and what their commitments are in State expenditure in the whole area of research and development. It is a good thing that we have done this because the consequences to other countries and to us in the past for not having done this have been nothing short of calamitous.
There has been a generally benign atmosphere here today in discussing this report. The only mordant note struck was by Senator FitzGerald even though in many ways he was very optimistic because he concentrated on the side of poetry, the arts, the role of religion, and the Thomistic notion of the full man, the importance of the emotions and the training of the intellect and so on. What did not come through today — I hate to be the one to bring it in — is the dire need we have for this document. Science and technology, taken together, really represent a two-edged sword. They have done a great number of things that have immensely improved the condition of man but, side by side with those advantages, there have always been disadvantages. We all know this and the classic example of it would be the discovery of nuclear energy which has a destructive and a creative side to it. Even the creative side is highly problematical because we are not too sure how we can control it. The problem of whether or not to have a reactor is still in the air. One of the things about nuclear energy, therefore, is its immense danger. We belong to a species that has created that kind of challenge and terror for ourselves and we are gravely in doubt as to whether we can control it. A couple of generations could see the wiping out of the achievements of civilisation if that ability to control it is not found. Oil is another example, the problem of the pollution of the air and the pollution of the water. That, too, if it is not controlled and monitored can destroy areas of our country quickly.
It is in that region that we see the importance of the interlocking agencies we have, the National Board for Science and Technology, which seems at the moment to link the other two agencies, the Institute for Industrial Research and Standards, on the one hand, and An Foras Forbartha on the other. The kind of mordant note I should like to strike is that of my own daily apprehension and recognition that the whole infrastructure of the country is at the moment creaking and groaning at the joints. Many of our roads are in an appalling condition and are deteriorating daily. The telephone system is a European joke and it does not seem to me to be getting any better. Public transport in Dublin is as bad as is to be found in many African countries and it is not improving. All over the country we are suffering from inadequate water supplies, inadequate water pressure, as was tragically manifested for a while in Artane recently, dirty water and an extraordinary proliferation of urban squalor and decay on every side. Many of our midland lakes are dying an agonising death from pollution caused by the pig industry and from the indiscriminate dumping of waste from industrial plants and factories. I do not think that is too grim a picture to paint.
There is no doubt that science and technology have inflicted a great deal of harm on the environment as well as contributing a great deal of good. It is in that context that I should like to welcome the science review because we have in time woken up to the difficulties involved. At least we have at our disposal the resources to cope with these difficulties if we deploy those resources properly. I was surprised, shocked and appalled — I hope it is not true — when I heard Senator Harte speak about the possible attenuation or emasculation of An Foras Forbartha and their merging with the IIRS. There is no mention of that in any documentation we have, so I presume he has heard that in the wind. That would be a deplorable departure, of course, because both agencies, which at the moment are under the surveillance I presume— I do not understand the pecking order here — of the National Board of Science and Technology, are different and have two different functions. As I understand it, the IIRS are there to help the developer and the industrialist in bringing forward their plans for industrial development throughout the country. An Foras Forbartha are there to help local authorities to monitor the developments on the side of the environment. If there is any industrial development to be brought forward in terms of urban planning, small town planning or provincial town planning, developments in housing or in industry, An Foras Forbartha are there to provide the necessary expertise to show what the reverberation of that would be on the environment. As far as I can see they have done that job extremely well down through the years. I am thinking of productions of theirs, not just their investment in today's and tomorrow's environment. Their review of 1979-80 shows an extraordinary record of achievement and the remarkable product, Ireland in the Year 2000, has a series of extremely interesting projections as to where we may be going in terms of technology.
A list of the table of contents of that is extremely instructive and wide ranging. It takes in everything from government and administration to population, employment, leisure, science, technology in education, regional development, urban form, the physical environment and its implications for the year 2000, energy and natural resources, industry in Ireland today, agriculture and rural life, trends to the year 2000, the industrial sector and so on. Since 1964, when they were set up by a United Nations agency, as I understand, they have made an incomparable contribution to Irish life.
The thought that they might be merged or attenuated at this stage would be awful even if they were brought together under some new portmanteau title. I remember the attempt to do that some years ago under a previous Government when they decided to abolish An Foras Talúntais. We resisted that with a great deal of vigour for the good reason that An Foras Talúntais were known throughout the world for their publications under their own title. Similarly, An Foras Forbartha are an internationally recognised agency. Their publications are recognised throughout the world and are awaited with expectancy by other learned and active bodies in other ecologies and economies. Suddenly to put an end to that, to merge them with something else or to render them meaningless, to destroy their own inherent energies, insights and intuitions would be a step back into the dark ages. It would be putting at naught the very enlightened policies that brought them into existence in the first place.
I hope that what Senator Harte has had to say about that is mere hearsay. I hope the Government are not so foolhardy as to destroy something which was created in such a spirit of enlightenment and has so richly justified itself down through the years since then. I should like reassurance at the end of the day on that issue. I had not heard of that at all and I wonder how many Senators had spoken of it before Senators Harte mentioned it a few moments ago.
One of the big challenges facing us in the whole question of science and technology is not, as one or two people have suggested, that we are getting too much of it. We cannot get too much of it. Obviously, one of the great challenges to our country is to find the scientific and technological expertise in order to develop the resources we have. We have come late upon the scene. The industrial revolution did not reach Ireland until the sixties, two-and-a-half centuries after it came to England. We have a great opportunity to benefit by that because it means that we are not encumbered by these archaic factories, plants and structures they have, for instance, in Britain and which they are so brutally axing at the moment. We have the opportunity to develop technologies and industrial enterprises that are peculiarly suited to our own environment, the environment of a small country with as yet a largely unspoiled ecology and with a growing population which needs to be educated. That education should not become technological at an early stage. The system we have at the moment up to the leaving certificate of having a broad base of humane as well as scientific subjects is the correct one.
The problem was raised by some Senators that certain schools do not have science available and a great number of our young people are not studying chemistry, physics, biology and the science oriented subjects. The chief reason why those schools do not offer those options is because industry and research tends to draw off our science graduates away from the area of education. To put it more simply, teachers are not paid enough to attract young scientists into the secondary and vocational schools in order to teach science. That is a problem. It is one that is simply solved by increasing teachers' salaries. We would be a long way towards solving that if that happened. We should increase also the capital investment in second level schools so that the scientific areas and the laboratories there are attractive, exciting and magnetic areas of education rather than the repelling dungeons they tend to be in so many schools still.
There are a few random points that I should like to pick up before ending. This has been a long debate and I do not want to protract it unnecessarily. I want to stress, before making those small points, that organisations like the IIRS and An Foras Forbartha are worth their weight in gold. There is a kind of cut-back in the present recession on resources towards them. It is very short-sighted to do that. We are now rejoicing in the fact that we are supposed to have what we call a kind of planned economy. In other words, we look forward. We do not just allow a factory there, give a grant here, and do this that and the other with everybody with a bright idea being encouraged to open this or that kind of industrial enterprise. We hope that instead we are going to plan our future in a way which will be increasingly successful. In other words, a factory will not open this year in order to close down in two or three years time, that anything we do put the taxpayers' money into has a good chance, the stamina and the market need to survive.
One of the big ironies of our own time is that there is a clamour worldwide for specialist employees in specialist areas. There is a great need for such people. At the same time there is a generalised clamour for employment in industries and enterprises which have very little hope of survival and do not answer much of a need in the market place. Obviously, there is a great correlation between the kind of industries we open and the kind of education we give so that the industries we open should fall congruent upon the training we give the people. One of the great challenges of the future is to try to get rid of this clamour for jobs, any kind of jobs, create jobs for people. That is wrong thinking. What we need to do is to create the correct kinds of industries and train our young people so as to be able to move flexibly between those industries and in that way plan a future. We have meagre resources. Surely that is the way we are thinking. Great evidence and a symptom of that thinking, obviously, is this report before us. If we are going to do that now more than ever do we need agencies like the IIRS which gives its expertise to the developer and the industrialist and even more so An Foras Forbartha which has taken this over view of the environment. It has assessed its capabilities and its limitations and can provide the data to the Government and the industrialist with regard to how industrial or any other type of development can be set up throughout the country.
Even more than ever the two separate functions are needed. To merge those two functions in one body would seem to me to be monstrous. The primary role of An Foras Forbartha is the protection of the environment. It is up to them to say an asbestos plant is not suitable in a certain area or such and such a plant is not suitable there because it will kill the fish but it is suitable elsewhere. It is not a negative ministry they have but a ministry which takes particular care of the environment. Their multitudinous reports on the environment show them to be very much in the centre of the picture. They really are the people to whom to apply for that kind of expertise.
The IIRS is completely different. Its emphasis is on getting the action going on the ground, doing the developing. These two, under the reign of the National Board for Science and Technology, can do incomparable reciprocal work in the planning of our economy. I hope that point is clear. I would be appalled if I thought this was going to happen.
I was going to make a different speech until I heard Senator Harte sounding off on this subject. I am glad he did. It so stopped me in my tracks that I will forego my few other items of wisdom I intended to impart before sitting down.
My brief contribution will focus on two points, namely the role of politicians in relation to decisions on technological matters and, secondly, the administrative structures for the implementation of those decisions. Our primary concern is the integration of science and technology into economic and social development. I speak as a non-technical person but I recognise we have an obligation as politicians to develop a deeper understanding of technology.
Major technological decisions continue to be made like the construction of power stations or urban and rural development. Non-technical people—most Members of the Oireachtas fall into that category—are being carried along by decisions made by experts. Decisions made against scientific criteria only may not take adequate account of the financial implications. We are talking about investment decisions of hundreds of millions of pounds. Human implications of technological decisions may not be fully thought out either. High rise public housing and urban development are two cases in point. There are very important economic and social dimensions to technological decisions about which we, as politicians, must ask questions—this affords us the opportunity—and, I suggest, make a policy input. The Science Budget before us represents a cohesive document. The National Board for Science and Technology is an important co-ordinating mechanism in this field of science and technology.
Our existing departmental structures, however, means that the implementation of technological decisions is untidily spread across a number of vertical slices of Departments as in Agriculture, Environment, Industry and Commerce and so on. The co-ordinated approach which characterises the board's work is, I suggest, disintegrated into Government departmental slots. There is an urgent need in my view for co-ordination and perhaps, an interdepartmental group would help here. As politicians we must be concerned with technological decisions not alone because of the vast expenditure of public funds involved but also because these decisions can, and sometimes do, adversely affect the living and working conditions of our citizens.
I see this debate as a step in the right direction in regard to informing politicians on the role of technology in our society. More needs to be done actually to involve the Members of the Oireachtas in the technology decision-making process. We, as politicians, should be more involved in co-ordinating and integrating our approach to technological decisions and in examining the scientific, the economic and the social dimensions of these decisions.
I will be brief in this debate on the Science Budget. The fact that there is this new format under the National Council for Science and Technology and the discipline of producing this Science Budget is acting as a welcome stimulus and means that there is this enlightening discussion in the House which I hope will become an annual feature of public life in both Houses of the Oireachtas from here on in. I have an interest in this because during the course of the last Dáil I was Chairman of the Committee on the Bill setting up the National Council for Science and Technology. We had interesting discussions teasing out many of the matters which are the subject of this report. The Science Budget is an excellent document. It has been well produced and is immensely practical in its approach. There is a danger when discussing items relating to science and technology that the technologists will have a field day and talk in esoteric terms which are meaningless to many of our people. I am delighted to see the extent to which they have got down to the nuts and bolts of these issues in this report. For example there is a chapter on the role of small industry here and on the small companies that employ fewer than 100 people. It deals with the position of those small companies in so far as science and technology are concerned. The fact that they are tackling those matters at that fundamental and simple level is an indication that they are doing a fine job. I should like to compliment the National Science Council on getting quickly off the ground. They were only recently established and in this relatively short period they have established the ground rules and are now presenting for consideration the Science Budget.
This report is a little too anonymous for my liking. We are talking about a report which runs to about 80 pages but from the front cover to the last cover there is not the name of a human being associated with it. That should be corrected in next year's Science Budget. The board and those employed to do this work deserve certain credit. It is a little difficult for people reading this budget who want to find out certain facts about sections relating to the food industry, marine or electronics because there are not the sources in it which would allow them to pick up a telephone to find out further information they might need. It is a simple matter. It may be that they are being unduly modest in not giving themselves the credit, but I hope they will do so.
Educational development in technology has been remarkable. The big phenomenon of education here in the last decade has been the development of the regional technical colleges and the national institutes for higher education. It is past time. With the advent of free third-level education it seems to be every mother's ambition to have her children going into third-level but not tampering so much with the sciences or technology but in the more traditional third-level disciplines we have had. It has been disastrous, because what we are seeing coming through this system of education is the emergence of more people than we need in certain disciplines and not enough in others which are vital to our development at this time. When we look at the teaching profession we see the serious problem there is concerning graduates in Arts and other such disciplines and they are scrounging around for jobs without any success. Yet, there is tremendous scope in this field about which we are talking today. The report addresses itself to some of the educational defects. Its perception of it is that this is really a problem at second level. The report states that the present skill shortages have focussed attention on the lack of emphasis on the physical sciences and mathematics at second-level. It states that in relation to the number of students taking certain science and technology subjects in the leaving certificate in the years from 1975 to 1979 the statistics are anything but satisfactory. We seem to be going backwards rather than forward. The report states that the figure of 4.3 shows that the imbalance is more marked for females in the lower level of physics and honours mathematics levels. The seriousness of the situation is heightened by the fact that in 1979 only 41 per cent of males and 35 per cent of females who attempted higher level maths were awarded Grade C or higher compared with 59 per cent of males and 58 per cent of females in 1975. It is a serious business and there are obviously defects in this second level area. The report very rightly raises the whole issue of career guidance in pointing out that only half of the post-primary schools in the country have full-time career guidance councillors and only one course is available for training in this particular area. When so many are going into third level education, and when the nation obviously has a huge commitment to education and is funding costs of education to such a huge extent, the nation in return should gear things so that it is getting the response from that investment by way of citizens emerging in the disciplines in which they can best contribute to the development of this country. Of course it is equally in the interest of the pupil in this case to get on the right route.
One useful matter that may emerge from this new annual horizontal allocation or summary of funds going into science and technology is the comment in relation to the value. I have felt for a number of years that in the State sector we sometimes establish State bodies, State boards or semi-State bodies in a welter of enthusiasm and while they do useful work in a number of areas we must keep coming back in a disciplined fashion to review the work of these bodies. There is the danger of obsolescence, just as in industries there is the possibility of product obsolescence.
The setting up of a board to do a particular job in 1930 may have been eminently sensible then, but this board in the eighties may have simply outlived its usefulness. With the normal pecking order that obtains, human nature being what it is, this board will have built up a structure and a defence mechanism to protect its survival. This horizontal examination in this Science Budget could lead to the appraisal of what is happening in the various areas in many of the boards which are involved in science and technology. In saying that, I am not suggesting for a minute that those working in a particular sector do not have the right to employment, but in many cases re-deployment of some of these resources in other areas might be very sensible in the national interest, rather than a continual padding of layer over layer of public servants in a country of relatively limited means.
There is immense scope in this science and technology area. Private industry, for example, is funding research and development on science and technology projects only to the extent of less than 1 per cent. The norm in other developed countries is running somewhere between 3 and 4 per cent. In a country such as ours with an open economy and very limited raw materials and native resources, survival must depend on technical advancement. The Government are as culpable as the private sector because the Government are spending less than 1 per cent of the gross domestic product on research and development, while in other countries of the developed world the comparable percentage of GDP stands at over 2 per cent.
I conclude as I started by congratulating the National Board for Science and Technology on the speed with which they got off the ground and by complimenting them on this very significant report which is enlightening and most interesting and by pleading with them, when they next produce such a report, to give the list of the personnel who are involved in the compiling of the report. I wish them well with their work.
I also welcome this report and compliment the Leader of the House for arranging for this debate. The only thing that mitigates my optimism is that everything is somewhat overshadowed by item No. 1 on the Order Paper. However, it has been a very good debate and one of the important things is the emphasis on the interplay between the humanities and the sciences which we must never forget. It is well worth stressing and it has been stressed very effectively this afternoon. I am an interested party because I am the only scientist among the six university representatives and perhaps that is a revealing statistic. I would be the last person to detract from my distinguished colleagues, two of whom are lawyers, one an historian and one a literary man. I have a specific and a very definite interest in the matter we are considering.
Perhaps I might refer to my own subject just for a moment because a number of people, including Senator Staunton, have referred to the problems which are highlighted in the report, of the small number of candidates taking higher level mathematics in the leaving certificate, a smaller proportion than took that subject some years ago. We mathematicians are at fault: certainly we must share some of the blame for curriculum problems which still plague the primary and secondary schools and which arose because of misdirected enthusiasm to modernise when nowadays a cooler look at the mathematical curriculum would have suggested a less abrupt leap towards abstraction when the syllabus was revised some ten to 15 years ago. Most mathematicians would agree now that our syllabus is somewhat unbalanced and that the old verities — the numerical skills — are essential and must be developed and the sudden change in the curriculum caused problems from which we have not yet recovered. I believe that the mathematics curriculum should be modified and, perhaps, made slightly more old fashioned.
On that subject, I think the leaving certificate honours mathematics papers are too hard. I have had the business on occasion of actually checking the papers before they got to the final printing stage. The first time I did this I was going home to Cork on the train. Three hours are allowed for a paper and the train takes three hours to reach Cork, so I thought I would finish the couple of papers I had to check. I am supposed to be good at it and I was half way through the first paper when we got to Mallow. I think we are pitching things a bit too high and I also think our emphasis on abstraction, while it is important, is somewhat over-done. The Minister might like to know that in the opinion of very many of the professional mathematicians at university level our mathematics syllabus needs to be serviced downwards. We are not being critical of him in any way; in fact we are really criticising ourselves. I know that my colleagues feel this, and a particularly interesting thing is that the colleagues upon whom this really impinges are those who have children attending school who bring home their problems to daddy, a professor of pure mathematics.
Quite literally there is terminology used in the primary syllabus with which I am not fully acquainted. We leaped too far in the direction of a certain type of geometry and set theory. I think we could retrace our steps with thought.
I would like to make some general remarks and then refer to some of the specific institutions which the report mentions. One of the important things about science is the fact that if it is presented correctly to young people with some talent it can be an exciting experience. The excitement is something that should be stressed and highlighted. Now that is not to say that every branch of science does not require a lot of hard work; of course there is a certain amount of drudgery. There is no getting away from the hard work, but there is excitement which every young person should have the opportunity of experiencing.
Just thinking of this mathematics problem and discussing one or two experiences with people, one of the things we went overboard on in our re-touring syllabus to use the technological phrase, was set theory. Senator McGuinness is groaning here because she obviously has had family problems and there have practically been family breakdowns over set theory. I taught for two years in Glasgow University, and the Scottish set-up was closer to ours than the English set-up. It is a model worth looking at. They had a general first year in which one took three subjects whatever course one was doing.
In mathematics in Glasgow University there was a first year class of 450 and they split it into nine groups of 50, and I was one of the teachers. I had a group of 15 people all of whose names began with Mac — they called it the Celtic Team. I did very well with my Celtic team. There was very good and excellent didactic tradition maintained in the Scottish university and there was a lot of emphasis on the teaching particularly in the elementary courses. I remembered being practically scalded alive by a senior lecturer in Glasgow University, the man who was supervising me, because I numbered my Venn diagrams the wrong way around. The whole point about Venn diagrams is that it does not matter what way one numbers them. This was an example of the over-emphasis on something of really very limited importance.
The way one numbers the diagram does not matter, one will get the same answer, but this was an example of where they were falling into the trap of going overboard on this set theory. Set theory is just something that one uses occasionally in the simplest possible form — a single union or intersection, and that is all one needs to know. The concept of a set is important but these high-faluting manipulations that one sees on some of our papers are really, to put it mildly, a load of nonsense. To get back to the point I was making, the excitement of a young person coming across scientific and mathematical ideas for the first time is important, it is something to emphasise, because not all teaching is exciting. A lot of it is a tough, hard, slog, but there certainly is this vital thing about science. There are ways of emphasising this and I would refer to two which have made an important contribution to scientific education here.
The first one of these is the Young Scientist competition run by Aer Lingus in the RDS every year. That has stimulated great interest in project type work in schools and it is excellent. I am glad that my own profession, the mathematicians, the Irish Mathematical Society, has organised mathematical olympiads. This is an old Russian tradition that the brightest young mathematicians in the schools were entered for the competitions, a regional competition, then a big national competition. These were for the really talented people and the problems are extremely hard. Certainly it is something that can add to the excitement experienced by young people with real talent. The examples of those two competitions are to be commended, as they are very important.
In relation to some of the institutes mentioned in this document, we must not lose sight of the fact that the entrepeneurial spirit can be of the utmost importance in a scientific way. I am an advocate of self-help supplemented by State Aid. The efforts by private individuals and private institutions are often more effective when they make the effort first rather than looking immediately for State assistance. The great exponent of this philosophy was a man who was a great advocate of the science method, our very first Minister who was vice-president of a fully fledged Irish Government Department which was of course the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction which was set up in 1899. Sir Horace Plunkett was first vice-president, in other words Minister for this Department, was a great exponent of this philosophy, and he was also very keen on the application of science to agriculture. It was interesting that agriculture and technical instruction were linked together, and Sir Horace Plunkett and his colleagues placed great emphasis on education being the real way of raising the status of the farmer and improving rural life. He was absolutely right
My family had a contact in a modest way with this Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction because they were very quickly into the scientific field. One of the first schemes to be set up was the upgrading of our cereals. The research was carried out jointly financed by the Department of Agriculture and by Messrs. Guinness. It was greatly to Guinness's benefit that our cereal stock should be upgraded and that new breeds of cereal more suitable for our climate should be bred and discovered, and the initial work was done in Ballinacurra, in east Cork. It was supervised by my mother's stepfather John H. Bennett who malted barley for Guinness. It was not very long before the cereal station in Ballinacurra had bred what became the first universal barley, which became famous. Since then many other institutions have bred other barleys which are spread across the world. Here is the sort of interplay we want between a private industry and a State-sponsored body — the Department, Guinness and the operation that my family had an interest in in east Cork. It was an interesting side effect, because the statistician in Guinness at that time was an Englishman known as Mr. Gossett who became very famous. He discovered one of the standard statistical tests, the T test, and some of the fundamental papers in statistics deal as their basic material with the barley growers of east Cork and thereabouts and use all the familiar names of east Cork farmers and their barley varieties, their temperatures, the quantities and so on and Student's T test is universal in modern statistics.
We ought to look outside this country for further examples of the interplay between private industry and education. Go ahead firms with interest in research and development should be interested in promoting the sort of science that they use in local schools. This is common in other parts of the world but it has not taken off here. It is the sort of thing which is worth exploring further. At a higher level, when it comes to university funding for research, the universities must depend mainly on the State, but they should do more off their own bat to raise funds. Here the US model is the crucial one. The sums of money at Harvard University's disposal for any type of research from their graduates, from industry and from admirers of Harvard University are measured in billions of dollars. My own university, Trinity College, recently had considerable success in raising research funds and they were greatly helped by the American model. Their operation was based on the American model. What one has to do is to persuade industrialists and others that it is of direct benefit to them that levels of research funding are raised and that there is a limit to what the Government can spend. I am not proposing to set any limit nor am I trying to absolve the Government from responsibilities, but the universities should also look to the private sector and to the other third level institutions. For example, in my own area I spend a lot of time teaching engineers and I know that Trinity, in common with the other Irish universities, have taken on a considerably increased number of engineers and we hope that the Government will provide the funds that were promised through the HEA because the report makes clear the lack of graduates in engineering. The universities wish to play their part and they must get at least the base funds from the Government for this increase in technological output.
The Royal Irish Academy and the Royal Dublin Society referred to in the report are both private institutions. The academy received considerable Government support, but the Royal Dublin Society exist off their own bat and fulfil a tremendously valuable function in our whole scientific world. They are tremendously important, not least for their library facilities, which are worthy of comment. The academy have a very important role to play in that all the universities are represented on their committees and they act as a unifying source. There are national committees to deal with all the various subjects in science and the humanities and they are also independent. They have certain funds of their own and they run their own publication. For example, they are the only body producing a mathematical journal here and they use this journal to get journals from other similar bodies by exchange. This means it is our central mathematical library.
Our libraries are tremendously important and they must be developed and maintained. I emphasise the important role the Academy plays. It has developed greatly in the last ten years and they are at the centre of research and development in science and in the humanities.
It is said to think that when Deputy de Valera had the idea of starting the Institute for Advanced Studies, which reflected his tastes very much, with three branches in theoretical physics, cosmic physics and Celtic studies he offered the running of this new body to the Royal Irish Academy but the academy were going through a rather low period and turned down the offer. The Institute for Advanced Studies would have been better situated under the academy's aegis than in their present situation under the Department of Education. The Minister might contemplate at some future date looking at that original scheme as the Academy are now much better placed to take up an offer. Certainly if that offer were made now they would have no hesitation in taking it up. It would be a very happy arrangement. Perhaps the Minister might think of offering the academy the DIAS at a future date.
The priorities are right, that most of the funds we have must go into applied research but, on the other hand, we must not forget that at the base there is fundamental pure research work to be done. We cannot develop good facilities and we cannot produce good applied researchers unless we have at least a base of good fundamental pure research people to build on. The Institute for Advanced Studies fulfils an important role there. It was very unfortunate that Deputy de Valera's initial offer was not taken up because a pure research institute, or even sometimes an applied research institute, fits in somewhat better having regard to independence. They have to have State funding but the more independence and flexibility they have in the expenditure of the grant, the better.
Another body which plays a very important role and which has a terrific international reputation for which we should be very grateful, is An Foras Talúntais. Senator Martin referred to the great struggle we put up in this House when a Bill was proposed to capture An Foras Talúntais and bring it in under the ACOT umbrella. I was involved in this struggle against the then Minister for Agriculture. I discovered in my researches that An Foras Talúntais was set up specifically from Marshall Aid funds. In fact, there was a specific treaty between the US and the Irish Governments which set it up. There was a fascinating debate in Dáil Éireann. Deputy de Valera introduced it and Deputy James Dillon was the Opposition speaker. Between them they had a tremendous discussion in which many interesting things emerged. It was clear that the treaty was a compromise. The Americans wanted to spend money on agricultural research in the Ireland. They wanted to set up an agricultural university but Deputy de Valera threw up his hands in horror and said "We have too many universities; we have problems with them and we are not going to have an agricultural university". The Minister still has the odd university problem but whom would one have given it to if one were going to give it to one of the existing universities?
All sweetness and light.
The compromise was that there would be a semi-State body set up but the one stipulation the Americans made on the path to this compromise was that it must not in any circumstances be a branch of the civil service and it must be an independent research organisation. We made great play out of that when the Minister was getting his Bill through to bring An Foras Talúntais under ACOT. The Bill was passed after a struggle but his successor reversed the process, which was absolutely right. The more independence such an organisation has the more likely it is to retain first-class people. After all, if a first-class scientist is invited to Algeria or to the Argentine because he is the best man in the world at growing tomatoes under infra red lights, and he gets a free trip and is paid for his information, that is great and it is a credit to him and to us. By giving a man that flexibility, one would ensure that he stays working for one and that his knowledge and experience would be directed towards the problems of his country. It is an important point of principle that research institutes and institutions should be given the maximum independence and the maximum flexibility when they are being established or as they are maintained. We should work towards that. There has to be some overall control but the more relaxed it can be and the more independence that these institutions can generate the better for us all. Better results will appear because the good scientists will be attracted to these institutions, they will stay and we will benefit from their expertise.
My final point concerns nomenclature. There is nothing, as a scientist or a mathematician knows, that is more important than nomenclature. I would point out one minor but important flaw in this document which occurs in the second paragraph on page 3 which says:
In carrying out these responsibilities the board has available three statutory instruments:
—statements of Government,
—Science Budget, and
—National Programme for Science and Technology.
Those three items, whatever they are, are not statutory instruments. I can assure the NBST of this because I have, this afternoon, been chairing this House's Select Committee on Statutory Instruments. If they think those are statutory instruments, then they would come under the purview of this select committee, and that could be a very unpleasant experience for the NBST.
What is meant is that there are instruments established by statute that they have. They are not technically statutory instruments and if they were they would have a capital S and a capital I.
I am not arguing about the philosophy behind these mechanisms. I am only just making an important point of parliamentary nomenclature.
There would be capital letters if they were statutory instruments.
They are not statutory instruments in any sense in which a Parliament uses the term.
They are statutory instruments — small s, small i.
I cannot agree. I am afraid that changing big S's to small s's and big I's to small i's does not get the Minister off the hook here.
I have no responsibility to do that.
This is a spurious defence of this. It is a minor point. Next year, I for one, and I am sure the other members of my committee, some of whom are in the House, would prefer that such nomenclature was avoided.
The Minister to conclude.
It is hardly worth while for the Minister to speak now, and I suggest that the House adjourn until 10.30 a.m. tomorrow.
Debate adjourned.
The Seanad adjourned at 8.35 p.m. until 10.30 a.m. on Thursday, 19 February 1981.