An election may be looming but don't be so optimistic as to expect politicians to make any of the State's pressing technology issues into election issues. As both politicians and senior civil servants have told me recently, "technology doesn't win votes", writes Karlin Lillington
Even though the area may be getting a broader public profile than ever before - our scrappy broadband infrastructure, for example - politicians know that the voters of Carlow or Tipperary or Dublin are not going to stampede in their direction because they've learned to talk about points of presence and bandwidth.
About the only "big pipe" issue that's likely to excite most local voters is an improved water supply or sewage scheme. That may be frustrating to the handful of people with the foresight or personal interest to want big-picture issues of economic importance to be part of the electioneering process - and technology certainly qualifies as that sort of topic - but small-picture local issues tend to ignite voters, and politicians are looking to speak to those interests at the moment.
In addition, there's the boredom factor. Politicians know there is no better way to put your entire constituency to sleep than by rambling on about co-location at local telephony exchanges or the potential of wave division multiplexing to increase capacity on existing fibre networks.
That doesn't mean that politicians have the right to ignore technology issues, as nearly all of them so shamefully do. It also doesn't mean people who are interested in technology-industry topics (who also happen to be voters) should give up talking to law-makers because they feel their perspective is somehow ineffectual. Nothing could be further from the truth. The role of tech-industry organisations, leading industry figures, public pressure groups and interested citizens is crucial in keeping matters of importance on politicians' (and thus parties') agendas.
While politicians may not be out on the hustings talking about such issues, they will be aware of the importance many people place on these subjects.
And while technology developments may not arise strictly as election issues for politicians, many in the Dáil are willing to lend an ear to learn more and understand better. If they aren't, they need to be pushed to do so by the people who can best make a case for a change in their blinkered attitudes.
The industry itself and its prominent figures are exactly the people who need to make sure politicians understand the nuances and economic importance of the issues they wish to have considered. Politicians need to be kept in the loop. They also need to understand that tech issues are not a small bundle of niche interests but affect a major driver of the national economy.
Those issues may often be difficult to understand but it is the responsibility of elected representatives to have, at the very least, a working grasp of topics of such fundamental importance to the nation's health.
A related subject is one that gained some needed column inches this week: the budding Irish biotechnology and bio-sciences industry. On Monday, Enterprise Ireland pushed out an ambitious 10-year programme to promote and support growth in this high-risk but high-reward area.
For many years, biotech has had a low profile here, despite a growing base of successful pharmaceutical and biomedical device companies. No doubt such firms have been overshadowed by the higher visibility of the information technology sector. Also, perhaps people didn't think of such companies as technology companies per se, although they generally fit into that broad category.
Some people may view this area as overly risky, especially in the wake of concerns about our major home-grown pharmaceutical company, Elan. But the State needs to be looking at new areas of growth for the Irish economy, and making sure it keeps pace with international trends for investment and longer-term jobs creation.
Biotech firms are mostly long-finger jobs' opportunities. At the publication of the programme on Monday, the Tánaiste Ms Harney was looking at modest but significant jobs' growth over five years, from 400 at present to 1,800 in 2006, and 5,000 by 2010. This would accompany a growth in companies from 18 today to 130 by 2010, and a growth in sales from €32 million today to €635 million in 2010.
To put that in context, the information and communication technologies sector is estimated to contribute about €8 billion overall to the Irish economy.
So the figures and job prospects are not enormous but are strong and could eventually be an important contributor to economic stability.
Some other angles to consider are:
A move into biotech introduces always-needed diversification into our overall technology sector. As with a personal investment portfolio, one doesn't want to have all hopes riding on one corner of the market.
Biotech jobs are the knowledge-economy jobs that the State should be encouraging, and are less expendable than some of the areas we've focused on in the past, such as manufacturing.
Biotech and bioscience jobs can go virtually anywhere and do not need to be based around big-city locations such as Dublin or Cork. Indeed, most of our existing companies in the sector lie outside the Dublin area.
One corner of the biotech area - smaller companies that provide services such as testing or analysis or component-processing to the larger companies in the sector - can be revved into gear fairly quickly, without the long research horizon of many biotech firms. Establishing a base of such firms also would form a substratum for larger firms that are considering locating themselves within the State.
So the sector is certainly worth the time and attention it has been receiving from Government. It's impossible to predict if significant investment and growth will follow but it is crucial that the State be willing to take risks and support such explorations.
After all, that's exactly what happened back in the 1980s, when national policy first turned towards support for developing the high-tech sector. And look what came of that.
