I am glad the Minister of State is present for this debate. I am aware of his commitment to the spending of the substantial funds that were allocated for scientific research last year. The Minister of State is aware of my great delight at the announcement that these funds would be made available.
The entire scientific establishment greeted the announcement last year that the Government was allocating an unprecedented sum, £560 million, towards scientific research. However, the Minister of State must be aware that concerns have been expressed by members of the scientific community regarding newspaper reports on how this money is to be spent. I know he probably has not had time to read the ongoing discourse within the Irish Research Scientists Association, but he will have seen articles in The Irish Times in which a number of leading researchers expressed their concerns.
The Government's technology foresight report was one of the most far-reaching and powerful reviews of Irish knowledge performance ever carried out and it was good to see the Government following up so quickly by accepting the need for a major investment in knowledge and knowledge generation to ensure the country's economic future. However, as already stated, there is concern about the disbursal of these funds. It is unclear whether the Government intends to establish research institutes independent of the higher education sector. Many in that sector are concerned that the difficulties in establishing such institutes are being underestimated. They believe, and I agree, that it would be better to get the existing system working well before we embark on such expensive, long-term, stand-alone projects.
If we are to build institutes on greenfield sites, how many years will be lost before they are com pleted and ready for use? Will it be ten or 15 years? How much will it cost to build these institutes? Will £100 million or £200 million of the allocation of £560 million be spent on their construction?
My colleagues in the third level sector and I believe it will be difficult to attract top class researchers to these new centres. To quote Brian Sweeny who wrote the technology foresight report: "The rapid deployment of a central mass of world class researchers will have a twofold impact; it will give a clear signal to the knowledge based companies of the immediate present and future that we are serious about founding a substantial facility to meet their needs." How long does Mr. Sweeny think it will be before we can attract such a workforce? Very few people of very high calibre will come to an empty, isolated institution because their services are being sought internationally. These people are in their thirties to fifties, they will be established in top class institutions across the globe, their families will have settled in the countries in which they live and they will be aware of the difficulties involved in coming to Ireland to establish new institutions.
Mr. Sweeny appears to feel that these people would be prepared to work on short-term contracts and that they would not require security of tenure. While security of tenure is not what it was, it has not entirely disappeared. Most of the people to whom I refer are on five or ten year or even longer contracts. Many of them are on seven year roll-over contracts and their employers appear only too enthusiastic to retain their services following a peer review of their research work. We may find that we are attracting second rate people rather than the top class individuals we are seeking. The latter find it easy to obtain secure jobs.
It is difficult to know whether these new foundations will have their own research laboratories. Such laboratories are not entities in their own right; different laboratories are developed for different projects. We could end up building expensive facilities for projects that might only last two to three years and these facilities might not be capable of being converted to serve other purposes. Equipment must also be purchased. I recall reading an article in The Lancet some years ago on the value of equipment that had been bought for single projects only within a research establishment. The amount of money being spent was quite alarming.
It will also be difficult to attract people with good technical expertise. Good technicians are in great demand and they are specialists in their own right. Technicians cannot just be employed and then moved from botany to physics to gastroenterology with a great deal of ease because they acquire skill and build up expertise within their own disciplines. Ireland is considered to be extremely fortunate in terms of the technical staff available within our third level institutions.
We must realise that there could also be huge duplication in terms of the work carried out in these new research laboratories and that done in existing facilities in the third level sector. A partnership with this sector is essential for any foundation or institute but I cannot see any definite evidence of establishing such a relationship.
Will the proposed new institutes have teaching mandates? It is important that students are exposed to cutting edge research while they are being taught because they will not see such research as a further extension of where their knowledge may go. The knowledge based companies and sophisticated multinationals to which Brian Sweeny referred are much more likely to be impressed by investment that unites teaching with research. Most of the people working for those international companies will have taken that path to the positions they now hold. Incredibly successful businesses which were based on that concept have developed in this country during the past 20 years.
One cannot suddenly become a researcher if one has no idea what it involves. How long will it be before the institutes to which I refer are up and running properly – ten, 15 or 20 years? In my opinion we will have to wait too long for trained researchers to emerge from these institutes, particularly when one considers the rapid changes taking place in biotechnology and information technology.
We are ignoring the excellent institutions which already exist in this country. If the £560 million was invested in those institutions we could proceed with our plans immediately. I obtained a great deal of my information on research in this country from the Irish Research Scientists Association to which I am most grateful. However, it is not just the association which has been expressing concern. Many leading scientists from various disciplines have expressed their views in articles in The Irish Times.The Irish Research Scientists Association has developed a proposal which I consider good and which might cover what is being sought by the various Departments and members of the scientific community. I refer to the establishment of a virtual research foundation. To quote from one of the association's recent documents:
The virtual research foundation exists in the sum of the participants rather than in a particular building. It represents a compromise between the need to establish a foundation and attaining the best possible value for investment in research.
The foundation could have its headquarters in a prestigious public building and it would function rather like the Wellcome Trust which, before the advent of this great windfall, was more generous in the past to Irish researchers than the Government.
The researchers in this foundation would be teachers in third level institutions, many of whom are already internationally renowned. We should not underestimate the work of the National Mic roelectronics Institute in Cork. There are four major projects in train at present in the EU and that institute is the only one in Europe which is involved in all four. Contracts for such projects are not easily obtained. When we have places like this we must be very careful that we do not suck good people out of them and into these new institutes. That would diminish their potential while at the same time these greenfield institutes might not be as good as one would hope.
No one will return here to do medical research unless they can be assured of consultant posts and, possibly, professorships in our major hospitals and universities. Has this been checked with the Minister for Health and Children and the Minister for Education and Science? People will not return here from prestigious positions abroad unless they can get equivalent positions here. The only reason people who returned here in the past did not stay was that they were not properly funded. That will not occur now that we have the money.
We are so behind the economies with which we compete in the areas of long-term fellowships, project and programme grants and money for the overheads involved in running departments that it would take years to get institutes up and running. We have an existing research infrastructure. All the Minister of State need do is put flesh on the bones of these institutions. This would give him exactly what he wants and the research foundation would be an all-embracing body to cover all the various institutes.
