Vol. 353 No. 2
asked the Minister for Industry, Trade, Commerce and Tourism if he accepts the report of the Board for Science and Technology on the Institute for Industrial Research and Standards; and if so, the action he proposes to take to have the noted defects corrected.
11.
asked the Minister for Industry, Trade, Commerce and Tourism if he has reviewed the degree of overlap of services provided by the Institute for Industrial Research and Standards and An Foras Forbartha; and if so, the action he proposed to take in the matter.
I propose to take Questions Nos. 10 and 11 together. I have considered the report of the review of the Institute for Industrial Research and Standards by the National Board for Science and Technology.
My response to the main findings of the NBST review was set out in the White Paper on Industrial Policy, published on 12 July 1984. Copies of the White Paper were laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas. The White Paper stated that the future role of the institute in industrial development is as follows:
(a) the seeking out of companies and sectors where product and process improvements will lead to significant output growth and quality improvement — Chapter 13, paragraphs 5 (iv) and 17;
(b) the identification of opportunities for technology transfer and linkage. To this purpose IIRS staff will be transferred to major IDA offices abroad. A special unit has been established within the IIRS with specific responsibility for linkage — Chapter 5, paragraph 18; Chapter 10, paragraph 7; Chapter 13, paragraphs 5 and 13;
(c) the intensification of the institute's advisory services for the promotion of quality control — Chapter 10, paragraph 11; and
(d) to assist in the promotion of small industry, IIRS technology specialists are being located in all of the IDA regions — Chapter 10, paragraph 14.
I have asked the board of the institute to implement this revised role without delay. I have also asked the institute to proceed with a number of other operational changes arising from the NBST review.
The NBST also considered the question of the overlap of services between the institute and An Foras Forbartha in the environmental field. I have decided that the present institutional arrangements are the most effective. The role of the IIRS is concerned with ensuring that industry can meet environmental standards whereas the role of An Foras Forbartha is purely regulatory.
Would the Minister accept that if this report is soundly based it is scandalous that a body charged with giving good management advice and assistance to a wide range of firms should themselves be so poor in organisation?
I did not say anything in my reply to suggest the inference contained in the Deputy's remarks. I know there have been certain individual instances where the institute has been subject to criticism, including some from myself regarding a building they constructed at a cost above that intended. However, every organisation in the course of its life needs to have an infusion of new ideas and a period of self-criticism, including perhaps criticism from outside, so that it may renew itself. I do not see that necessary and normal process as in any sense giving grounds for despondency within the IIRS and among the many people within that organisation who work very conscientiously for the benefit of Irish industry.
The Minister did not develop the point in the second question regarding the overlap of services provided by the IIRS and An Foras Forbartha.
I referred to it in the last paragraph of my reply. I have decided that the present institutional arrangements are the most effective because the IIRS is concerned with helping industry to meet these standards, whereas An Foras Forbartha is in the role of a policeman looking at the matter from the penal rather than the facilitative angle.
