POLITICAL DIALOGUE between the Oireachtas and the European Commission should become a regular feature, Commissioner for Research, Science and Innovation, Máire Geoghegan-Quinn has said.
“These are testing times for Ireland. Families and communities across the country are feeling the effects of the recession.
“But I am confident that Ireland will recover,” she told the Joint Committee on European Affairs yesterday.
“Most agree that the Irish Government is taking the right steps to address the situation, painful though those steps might be,” she added.
The former justice minister said the commission had taken up office on February 15th and its proposal for the Europe 2020 strategy had appeared a month later, with EU leaders endorsing it two weeks ago.
“At the core of the Europe 2020 strategy is the creation of cleaner, greener and smarter jobs,” she said.
The strategy would be divided into three sections.
“I am talking about better science teaching in our schools – indeed a total re-think of education – with less focus on learning by rote, and more on the ‘soft’ skills – creativity, organising work independently and working in teams.”
There must be a single, unified research area in Europe, within which researchers and knowledge could move around freely.
“I want to remove, once and for all, the pension and social security obstacles which prevent researchers from moving freely between countries.”
Europe had a large and excellent knowledge base, “but we are not good enough at transforming our inventions into commercial successes”.
The commissioner intended to launch a small number of highly-targeted innovation partnerships.
“These will be launched in areas where a clear and measurable goal, for example, adding two years of healthy life by 2020, can be defined, bearing a direct link to a societal challenge, in this case population ageing.”
Fianna Fáil TD Michael Mulcahy said that the scientific heritage of Europe “doesn’t necessarily translate into commercial success” and said that bureaucracy was making it more difficult for small firms to enter the market-place.
On the issue of employment, Labour TD Joe Costello said that small and medium enterprises were having “huge difficulty” getting a credit-line at the present time.
Fianna Fáil TD Timmy Dooley asked about European-Israeli links and was told by the commissioner that the EU did not fund any military research by Israel.
Ms Geoghegan-Quinn urged the committee to invite other commissioners to meet them and to “come to us” in Brussels to continue the dialogue.
Fianna Fáil TD Seán Power quipped: “It’s a sin to travel outside the country.”
Committee chairman Bernard Durkan (Fine Gael) added that it was “hugely important” for national parliaments to know what their counterparts in other countries were thinking.