Professor Brian Caulfield:

Again I think it is a very good question and I agree completely with my two colleagues from UCC in their responses. Just to raise a point that was brought up before, funding was promised to the third level sector that has not yet been realised. As we sit here, we have all got exam papers we need to mark, and theses we are supervising and marking as well. Research is a part of what we do. Enabling the university sector to work better enables us to work better as well. We have never needed climate science and climate information more than we currently do. There are loads of other parts of science we need as well, especially biodiversity, but we need the funding that was promised to get to the universities.

I would agree that the amount of research we have in blue-sky or fundamental research, particularly in my own area, is abysmal. We had a very large European transport conference come to Dublin last week. I asked what research we were going to be showcasing at it because there was not and is not a national funding body that provides funding for fundamentals in transport research. That really needs to happen if we are to answer the questions that are required.