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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 25 Jun 1996

Vol. 467 No. 4

Written Answers. - National Microelectronics Research Centre.

Kathleen Lynch

Ceist:

280 Kathleen Lynch asked the Minister for Enterprise and Employment the plans, if any, he has for the further development of a national micro-electronics research centre; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [13641/96]

The National Microelectronics Research Centre in Cork is a strategic national asset. Increasingly, our success as a country in the coming decades will depend on our ability to adapt to a society of high skills and specialised knowledge. In this regard all our universities and research institutes, including the NMRC, will have a critical role to play.

Growth based on a market-led approach must be at the heart of the NMRC's mission. It must sell itself, by every means available, as a postgraduate/technology-driven centre of excellence to potential industrial clients.

The NMRC has made major strides in expanding its links with industry, both overseas and indigenous. In addition, it has been successful in expanding its facilities by use of own resources. A major extension has been completed which, for the first time in many years, puts all the NMRC activities under one roof — a major proportion of the cost of this has been contributed by the NMRC's industrial clients. In the coming years, I look forward to the NMRC continuing to expand its technological capability and to a continuation of the positive dynamism which the NMRC has displayed in providing an ever broadening range of microelectronics services to Irish industry.

I am pleased to see that the NMRC also participates with Trinity College Dublin and Queen's University Belfast in combining their expertise in the Institute for Advanced Microelectronics, IAM, established with IFI help. The achievements of the Institute — technical and non-technical — are impressive. Collaboration and exchange between the three parties is now commonplace; the institute has played an active role in attracting major new industrial concerns to both parts of Ireland. Perhaps the greatest achievement of the institute is in becoming self-supporting. The original work has moved from academic research to industrial exploitation.
For the NMRC, it is also essential in the longer term that it will continue to develop with a greater focus on income generation and with a greater participation by the shareholders. To this end, strategic plans which underpin the NMRC need to be agreed between all the shareholders. The nature of the longer-term relationship between the NMRC and the Programmes in Advanced Technology, PATs, also needs to be defined and consideration is being given to this in the context of the public response to the STIAC report which is now at an advanced stage of preparation.
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