I thank the Minister of State for coming into the House. Last week we debated the Universities Bill during which I devoted a considerable length of time to the problems being experienced due to a lack of funds for research in universities. I thought the Department was going to solve this situation. I barely got back to my office when I received fresh representations regarding the proposed cuts in capital equipment grants to universities. This is an appalling attack on the capability of these colleges to produce world class graduates. The two pronged proposal to cut the allocation for continuing capital costs by 50 per cent and to eliminate the large capital item programme will mean a cut of 60 per cent in the total allocation.
In 1995 the Science, Technology and Innovation Advisory Council report and the Higher Education Authority's CIRCA report were adamant on the need to provide adequate resources to equip colleges to a level approaching that of most modern States. SITAC recommended an emergency re-equipment programme of £5 million per annum for five years. The recent White Paper on Science, Technology and Innovation, though disgracefully thin on capital equipment, acknowledged that it needed to be addressed.
In light of this, it is astounding that the Higher Education Authority could be so far out of touch with reality that it could justify such a proposal. Irish researchers are rightly outraged at what can only be described as a cavalier disregard for the future of research. Once again the Department of Education, through the HEA, has underlined its complete lack of understanding of research and what constitutes advanced technological education. We have heard much over the past few years about shortages of technically skilled graduates for industry. Software, electronics, computer and pharmaceutical industries among others are crying out for skilled people. The shortages in some areas are so bad that it is beginning to compromise our ability to establish these types of companies here.
To produce a technically skilled graduate, one needs to be able to educate students to provide understanding and to train them in the most modern techniques. Educating and training require as an essential, access to modern research facilities. It must be part of the contract between the Government and the universities to make every effort to ensure this type of equipment is available. The Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council reported that the quality of Irish university research is rising more rapidly than in any other country despite the paltry amounts of public money available to support it. However, over the last few years research is becoming more and more equipment or technique driven. This means availability of equipment is a determining factor in whether a particular piece of work can be done. In the continuing absence of a realistic provision for capital equipment, the decision to further reduce the allowance makes no sense.
The hard work done by Irish researchers to be among the best in the world will be entirely negated unless the proposed equipment cut is reversed and dealt with in an intelligent and comprehensive manner, once and for all. The first step must be to move responsibility for the large capital item programme to the National Research Support Fund Board. One might ask whether the Department of Enterprise and Employment and the Department of Education communicate with each other, or whether the Department of Enterprise and Employment's need to make science and technology a central plank in economic growth and jobs is simply ignored by the Department of Education, which is supposed to be responsible for producing the staff to fill these jobs.
Apart from compromising Ireland's ability to undertake major research programmes, its ability to train and educate technically competent people, the role of the universities in the innovation process and Ireland's expertise pools, the lack of adequate support for capital equipment, even prior to the proposed cuts, has several serious consequences. These include increased concerns for the health and safety of our young research postgraduates; increased costs of maintenance of old or antiquated equipment; degenerating innovation links between industry, particularly small and medium sized enterprises, and the colleges; degenerating access to international research networks and degenerating access to the global knowledge base, both as producers and consumers.
Naturally, I look at health and safety very carefully. Concern has already been expressed by Irish researchers, through the Irish Research Scientists' Association, about the threat to the health and safety of researchers, particularly postgraduates, who carry on more than 60 per cent of the research done in the State. Antiquated equipment was not designed to meet modern health and safety standards. Coupled with that, as the piece of machinery gets older it starts to fail even the health and safety standards it originally met. However, Irish universities are forced to keep antiquated equipment in place until the last possible moment.
Industry sources have said equipment in Irish academic laboratories is expected to perform more intensely and for much longer than equivalent equipment in most other countries. A recent study in one of the universities concluded that two thirds of the research equipment in the college was more than 15 years old, as opposed to an industrial average of five years. It is only a matter of time before a catastrophic equipment failure causes injury or death to a researcher.
It does not make sense to run equipment into the ground. Industry will write down equipment after five years for several reasons, chief among which is the escalating cost of maintaining the equipment at peak performance levels. Once the point is passed where it costs more to maintain than the value of the results obtained, equipment will be replaced.
However, the same does not hold in academic laboratories. In our universities equipment will be maintained, almost regardless of cost, until it cannot be insured, the supplier has gone out of business, there are no more parts available — even from cannibalised machines — or some combination of the three. There is an example in this city of an item of equipment that is 34 years old. The supplier has been swallowed up not once but twice, the machine and its parts are no longer made and only the inventiveness of the staff keeps the machine going. The insurance company has baulked at covering it, but without it or a replacement all research in that department would cease. This is not the worst story.
While one has to admire the tenacity of the researchers involved, this sort of activity diverts staff from their more productive duties, slows down research while the latest problem gets sorted out and, most damning of all, diverts money that could more profitably be used in other areas to keeping antiquated, dangerous, less flexible, essential equipment on the road. This is a flagrant waste of taxpayers money; it is a false economy to restrict access to proper equipment.
The recent White Paper on Science, Technology and Innovation although, as I have said, unacceptably thin on the matter of capital equipment, does underline the essential need for industry to be more involved in research and development. It particularly draws attention to the small and medium enterprises sector. We have a problem here because two thirds of industrial research and development expenditure in Ireland is spent by one quarter of the foreign companies based here. In short, with a few notable exceptions, Irish industry spends very little on research.
While large corporations may be able to absorb the cost of research, it is very difficult to justify the cost of research in a small company where this cost is not immediately and directly productive. Small companies cannot support a research infrastructure, but they are the ones that most need to be innovative and to develop new products to secure their futures. The solution is obvious. Some 80 per cent of research activity in the State is done in the third level. That represents a huge resource waiting to be tapped. To make use of this resource it is essential that the small company can have confidence in the colleges, that the techniques, equipment and staff are up to the job and can carry out the research efficiently and in a cost effective manner. It is difficult to imagine a less inspiring prospect than commissioning research in a place where the most essential piece of equipment is nearly 30 years old. Last year I spoke very strongly about how important our small, vital firms are to industry.
If the colleges are to continue to play their role in the innovation process they must be supported in that regard. Access to the required equipment and facilities must be ensured. Irish knowledge based industry providing Irish jobs for Irish technical graduates, in conjunction with Irish colleges which can hold their place with the best in the world, is the key to continued economic growth and a society that provides for all. Do we want to remain a technological backwater, or do we want to invest in a brighter future? We must make that decision now.
Research networks are also of importance. While I recognise they are not available to everyone, they are such an important facet of research that they must not be overlooked. Research, particularly academic research, depends on the free exchange of information between researchers. While much of this exchange goes on through the research journals — which the Government also penally taxes — personal contact is almost as important.
The risk comes from the fact that as the technological capability of researchers in other countries gets further ahead of Irish groups, there is less incentive for foreign groups to interact with their Irish colleagues. At the moment we are compensating for this by forcing our postgraduates to emigrate and make contacts abroad, but as the demand for graduates increases here this conduit of knowledge will be restricted. The personal networking of researchers is vital for the exchange of ideas, techniques and the little bits knowledge that can make the difference between success or failure.
The rationable behind these cuts is very strange. The Higher Education Authority has completely ignored the advice given to it by its own CIRCA report. While individual members of the authority, including John Hayden, who is the secretary and chief executive, have been trying to raise the issue of capital equipment, the Higher Education Authority as a whole must be decried for this incomprehensible proposal. It makes no sense to the colleges, the researchers, most Senators and Deputies or the Irish Research Scientists' Association. The IRSA was told by the Higher Education Authority that this was part of a three year plan — a sort of "no bread this year but bread and jam next year" strategy.
The Higher Education Authority has budgeted £6 million for capital equipment over the next three years, which is a derisory amount by any standards. It now proposes to spend nothing this year so that it can spend more next year. Of course, it might be marginally less offensive if the money for these three years was in the bank already, but it is not. This proposal to cut the capital expenditure is predicated on the Department of Education and, ultimately, the Department of Finance being prepared to hand over the cash next year and in subsequent years. I find it never works like that — what has gone tends to remain gone.
I call on the Minister for Education, the Minister of State with responsibility for Commerce, Science and Technology and the Minister for Finance to immediately reinstate the capital equipment fund at its former level, to examine ways it can be boosted to adequately reflect our national needs in this regard and, more importantly, to address the existing structures to determine whether the Higher Education Authority is the correct body to be administering a research budget.
