asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if he has asked the National Science Council to assess the number of technologists that will be required for the development of mining at Navan, County Meath; and if he is making arrangements for their training.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Navan Mining Development.
70.
It is not strictly the responsibility of the National Science Council to provide the service envisaged by the Deputy. However I have approved the terms of reference of an Irish minerals industry survey which is being conducted under the guidance of a National Science Council Steering Committee by the Institute for Industrial Research and Standards. This study will, inter alia, highlight the national manpower and training requirements of the minerals industry.
Will the new science committee the Minister announced in his Estimate speech have this sphere of competence?
Yes. In fact the survey I have just referred to, the Irish mineral industry survey, is being carried out by the National Science Council. It will have the sphere of competence of being concerned with the whole resources of industry, specifically of mining, but only with the aspects of it which are scientific and technological.
The Minister may have missed the point of my question. Will there be any difference in the sphere of competence of the new science committee he said he was establishing and the old science council?
Theoretically no, but the old one was called the National Science Council and we have made it into the Council of Science and Technology which indicates that we have given a clear orientation towards production and towards the actual use of science in the economy to the extent that the new body has been, or is in the course of being, given specific briefs with a strong economic orientation. In theory the old body covered the whole of science. In fact, we are putting the new one out in a very technologically oriented direction. Therefore in practice it will be a little wider and also a little more oriented towards actual production.
The Minister said the bias would be in an economic direction. Would the Minister state what the specific relationship will be vis-à-vis education?
I am afraid I am not quite clear as to what is actually meant.
I am referring to the way the Department of Industry and Commerce ends and the Department of Education begins with regard to technology.
There is no precise Department with responsibility for science and technology. The Department of Education is concerned. So is the Department of Transport and Power as well as the Department of Industry and Commerce. We have also a science grouping inside the Cabinet and a science budget which will enable inputs from all the interested Departments to be co-ordinated and balanced. I explicitly stated at the outset that there was no intention of diminishing in any way the very important role education plays in science and technology.