From the perspective of scientific endeavour, where we are now is intrinsically better than during the 1980s

SCIENCE: THE 1980S WERE a disheartening time in Irelan/

The cost of government was inflated to a point beyond our capacity to pay. Mortgage interest rates were in double digits, heading for 20 per cent. Unemployment in 1985 stood at more than 17 per cent. Up to 40,000 people a year chose emigration as a way to advance their careers, with job prospects back here so poor they bought single rather than return tickets when leaving.

Are we any better off now? The Central Statistics Office shows unemployment is running at more than 13 per cent. Our government debt burden today is larger than it was in the 1980s, to the point of fiscal collapse. We are also carrying the can for the banks – which we now substantially own – with projected losses ranging as high as €50 billion or €70 billion.

An estimated 94,000 Irish graduates are unemployed, with no jobs to show for their investment in education. The current analysis of unemployment plus lack of career opportunities here leaves the Government predicting that 30,000 people a year will once again resort to emigration.

That was some social advance over the past quarter century. We are now in a hole so deep you can’t even peer over the edge. It has become almost impossible to follow the advice in the tune made popular by Bing Crosby:

You’ve got to accentuate the positive,

Eliminate the negative,

Latch on to the affirmative,

Dont mess with Mister In-Between

But how in God’s name to accomplish this in light of the current situation? Where can we look to accentuate the positive?

It is there if you look hard enough. Two weeks ago, I drove to Athlone to attend Science Foundation Ireland’s annual Science Summit. Several things struck me while there. I joined a four-lane motorway about 2km from my front door and remained on four lanes until I left the motorway about 5km from my destination. If the Celtic Tiger years left us with anything, it is a selection of very good roads, and their construction continues, if a bit more slowly than planned.

While there, I shared space at the Hodson Bay Hotel with 260 scientists, graduates, business people and others involved in the science community and nobody was talking about how bad things were.

Instead it was uplifting. There were dozens of presentations where scientists told other scientists and potential entrepreneurs about their latest findings. There was a palpable sense of accomplishment, of lots done more to do among the delegates.

This is due largely to the fact that, so far at least, the Government has left the science budget more or less intact. Our tax euros continue to fund high-quality science in this country. The Government, of course, is expecting a payback.

It hopes that the “smart economy” will take hold, that the discoveries being presented will deliver jobs and wealth. Supporting science also helps to attract high-tech foreign direct investment, which in turn delivers jobs and a tax income for government.

There were plenty of ideas at the summit. Prof Robert Lahue of NUI Galway, for example, has found a drug that might work against Huntington’s disease. SFI researcher of the year Prof Jean-Pierre Colinge of the Tyndall National Institute in Cork has developed a new kind of transistor, one that is small and cheap and might support the next wave of computer miniaturisation.

From the narrow perspective of scientific endeavour and research – and I accept that it is narrow and limited – where we are now is intrinsically better than during the whole of the 1980s. There are jobs about for some graduates and opportunities for post-doctoral fellows in the sciences and maths.

Even if budgets are trimmed it would not be the end of the world. It is universally accepted that emigration is a positive thing for those with science degrees. A graduate is much more valuable within a research group if they have experience gained while abroad. It gives them experience of a different way of doing things, new ideas, a feeling that there are fewer boundaries.

And just like the motorways left behind by the Celtic Tiger years, our science infrastructure is built and is being used, increasing the chances that if a graduate does have to emigrate for a time, there will be something there for them to come home to, a chance to continue in research.

I hear plenty of complaints that the career structures in research are poor and things are difficult.

But at least now you can aspire to come home. The world is littered with Irish graduates from the 1980s whose kids speak with American and English accents or speak fluent German or French. Which would you prefer? Exile or hope?