Science Week 2021 - Minister Harris' opening statement to Dail Éireann

Delivered 10 November 2021. Check against delivery.

I am delighted to be here today to open this debate to mark Science Week and I want to thank Deputy Naughten for asking the House to debate this important matter.

Today, we are highlighting the importance of science in the very week that negotiations are coming to a conclusion at the United Nations COP26 conference.

The outcome of which will shape the future of our planet.

And of course science and research are at the very core of the formidable tasks of understanding and addressing climate change, as COP26 is aiming to do.

As Taoiseach Micheal Martin said in his address to world leaders in Glasgow last week, “Ireland is ready to play its part”. At COP26, Ireland has:

• pledged to contribute to the global target of cutting methane by 30%
• vowed to more than double Ireland’s contribution to help developing countries, delivering at least €225m a year by 2025, to help them fight the climate crisis

I am delighted to note that Ireland’s research sector is also represented in the form of a delegation of researchers and students from University College Cork, the only Irish university with official observer status at the conference.

The delegation is led by the Director of the SFI-funded MaREI Centre for Energy, Climate and Marine at UCC, Brian Ó Gallachóir.

In a sign of the times, the UCC delegation made its way to Glasgow in a low carbon manner, by boat and train, and have been contributing actively to events there.

I am also pleased we are having this debate on Science Week – an opportunity to showcase the work of scientists and researchers across the country and importantly to have a conversation about what science means to all of us.

Sometimes we can have a very narrow view of science that is perhaps shaped by the way we were taught it in school. We might sometimes take it for granted, but research and innovation shape nearly every aspect of our lives.

We are facing significant challenges as a society and like Covid-19, it will be science that will help steer us through those obstacles.

As colleagues may know, we launched the Creating Our Future campaign, the first of its kind in Ireland, to get a full understanding of the challenges, issues and desires of the Irish public, and how research can support them in the coming years.

We believe now is the right time to have a conversation about science and research with the people of Ireland and ask you to give us your verdict on the problems and opportunities you think are most important to our society and economy.

By inviting the public to be central to these conversations, we can ensure the direction of research in Ireland is informed by the people it serves.

The starting point for all great research and innovation is simple – a wonderful idea.

We hope the public will speak to us about ideas that will inspire researchers to use all their skills and knowledge to help shape a better society.

If we want to make this country a better place to live and prosper, then we need ideas that will challenge our researchers and innovators.

We need the people of Ireland to tell them what difficulties they believe need to be addressed, what injustices need to be tackled and what ideas they have for making our society as fair and inclusive as possible.

All submissions will be considered by expert panels and the results of their findings will be published by the end of 2021 in a major report which will inform Ireland’s next strategy for research, innovation, science and technology.

So I would really encourage all members of the Oireachtas to have your say on what we should be focusing on and what your priorities are. So get involved, and use your voice and help us overcome the challenges our country and our world faces.

It is interesting, when mentioning the potential research topics for the future, that we take a look at Ireland’s research past.

Ireland has for many years played its part in advancing the breadth of human knowledge and creating new technologies that had an international impact.

One of these innovators was Father Nicholas Callan, a professor of Natural Philosophy in Maynooth College from 1834 to 1864.

He was a pioneer in the development of electrical science, and invented the induction coil, which was instrumental in the development of the modern transformer.

He had an electrically driven trolley in his laboratory in Maynooth, probably the first electrically propelled vehicle in the world.

He even proposed electricity as the means of propulsion for the then newly invented railways.

Indeed, it was another Irishman, James Drumm, who devised the system of battery -powered trains on Dublin’s railways a hundred years later.

Another Irishman who was to the fore in Research and Innovation was John Tyndall, one of our most successful scientists and educators.

He was at the pinnacle of 19th Century innovation, and was also an excellent educator.

While teaching in the UK, he developed the world’s first school teaching laboratory, and consulted widely with his peers.

He graduated with a PhD from Germany, where he studied under Robert Bunsen, of Bunsen burner fame.

I am happy to say that this Government continues to support the Tyndall institute, named in his honour.

For 40 years, the Tyndall Institute has played a key role in securing Ireland’s international prominence within the ICT industry and particularly within the chip and semiconductor sector.

We have seen how the application of advanced technology, developed at Tyndall, has a profound effect on the lives of citizens, as well as industry.

By their use in smart medical devices, high-speed telecommunications, robotics and automation, and the microelectronic chips that enable all of ICT.

As a leader in industry-academia collaboration, I am reassured that Tyndall will continue to play its unique role and guide Ireland into the next epoch of technology and secure Ireland’s future as a worldwide technology leader, whilst supporting key Irish technology companies and SMEs.

I think it’s fair to say that the COVID-19 pandemic has given people a greater appreciation of researcher and the work that they do.

My Department, together with other Government departments, worked to address the key challenges presented by the COVID-19 crisis.

The COVID-19 Rapid Response Research and Innovation Funding programme invested €18 million in 83 projects throughout 2020.

In addition, €4.8 million was invested in the TCD COVID-19 Research Hub project under the SFI Strategic Partnership Programme.

The resulting collaborative research engagement focused on immediate solutions like treatments and tests, as well as longer term solutions.

We worked to collate national and global data, and connected experts from across academia and industry.

The COVID-19 Rapid Response Research, Development and Innovation programme was delivered by a high level of interagency and HEI collaboration, together with EI, IDA Ireland, the HRB and the IRC and SFI.

Many of the funded initiatives address the long-term health and societal aspects of COVID-19 that will not be tackled with a vaccine alone. These long-term societal solutions are crucial as we continue to live with the virus and start to open society again.

€4.8 million was invested under the SFI Strategic Partnership Programme, where the research aims to answer key questions, such as why are some people are more susceptible to COVID-19 than others.

These developed quick and straightforward assays to detect current or previous infection with SARS-CoV-2 and studying the immune responses in different COVID-19 patient cohorts, including those with high/low risk of developing disease or those that have been vaccinated.

This provided key information for the design of more effective vaccines that confer long-term protection against infection, as well as therapeutics that control inflammation.

Outbreaks of COVID-19 in meat plants in Ireland presented a threat to workers and to our wider society.

Research funded under phase two of the COVID-19 Rapid Response Research, Development and Innovation Programme, in collaboration with the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and led by Prof Grace Mulcahy at UCD, aimed to better understand why meat plants are vulnerable to the transmission of COVID-19, and how to decrease the risks.

Studies will examine changes in virus genetic sequence, measurements of the impact of changes in temperature, humidity and airflows throughout plants, and an early-warning system using waste-streams.

The pandemic has also forced Government to examine the structures it has in place.

As Deputies know, the substantive post of Chief Science Advisor was abolished by a Government Decision in 2012 in the context of agency rationalisation.

When abolishing the post, Government noted the intention of the Minister to confer the duties and title of CSA on the current Director General of Science Foundation Ireland, Prof. Mark Ferguson. The role of CSA will therefore fall vacant when the Director General retires in January 2022.

The current arrangements were put in place in a particular context nearly a decade ago, and there are lessons to be learned from domestic and international experience since that time.

My decision to conduct a review of the structures, and in that context, not to continue the arrangement whereby the Director General of SFI also acts as CSA was made separately to the recruitment process for the new Director General, and in advance of candidate selection.

Having regard to soundings taken with a number of stakeholders in a number of Departments and agencies, my view is that the two roles should now be decoupled.

During August 2021, my Department initiated informal discussions with stakeholders on science advisory structures.

Instead of a CSA model, my Department’s initial review recommends investigation of structures along the lines of a science advisory forum or committee, as better suited to the cross-sectoral and multi-disciplinary advisory needs of Government.

The shape this forum might take will be informed by a public consultation, which I intend to issue early next year.

This will pose questions for Government too. Science impacts on all our policies but we do not have a formal structure for receiving scientific advice.

There is so much happening in the research area in Ireland, that I feel I have only scratched the surface. This is a dynamic policy, and my Department’s support of this policy will need to be similarly dynamic. In that spirit, I look forward to hearing the views of the House on this important area.