Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

These recommendations are very much related to my own recommendation No. 42, which I thought might be grouped with these recommendations, although it is fine that it is not. We know that a huge amount of expenditure goes into the research and development tax relief but we do not have the information on how that is being done. I support the recommendations.

While my own recommendation, which we may come to later, explicitly talks about the knowledge development box scheme, Senator Gavan's wider piece is important. There is significant expenditure on tax relief in respect of research and development but we do not have information on the extent to which that research and development, such as research and development in areas of research priority for the State, is linked to increases in manufacturing, production or employment within the State, or indeed the extent to which any of that research and development involves - this is what my own recommendation addresses - links and partnerships with research activity in higher education institutions within the State. We have a situation where we are putting a huge amount of money into the research and development tax relief while the research sector in our higher education institutions is squeezed to the edge. Many issues have been highlighted, such as the poor conditions for those working in research and the question of adequate terms and conditions for those who are working as researchers.We also have a situation where we have higher education institutions talking about their extreme lack of funding, the fact Ireland is way below the EU average in respect of our funding for third-level and higher education institutions, both as teaching institutions and with regard to research, and yet we have a very significant tax relief. I am just looking for the joining of the dots. If we are putting money into tax reliefs for research and development, it would be useful for us to be getting information apt to that tax relief with regard to how it is panning out in the context of the research and development leading to innovation, production and manufacture within Ireland. Besides being something that big companies want and that makes Ireland an attractive place tax relief-wise to do research and development, what actually comes with that research? What are the outputs of that research and development? How is it contributing, for example, to Ireland's reputation as a place for quality research and development as opposed to being just a place where the tax reliefs are good for that line in your budget that says research and development? How is it contributing in terms of actual outputs and links with outcomes, employment, education and our higher education institutions?