Government must increase spending on research and development (R&D) in line with economic growth if it does not want to put the Republic at a disadvantage, the chief executive of the State's largest private sector employer has warned.
Mr Craig Barrett, chief executive of Intel Corporation, the microprocessor manufacturer that employs 4,700 people in Leixlip, Co Kildare, said at the weekend that spending on basic scientific and technological research was the "domain of the government".
"The ability of governments to invest in basic R&D, and typically that research work is done in universities, I think is an important issue," Mr Barrett told The Irish Times.
"And I think the Irish Government has recently taken the attitude of increasing their investment in that space. You either continue to grow your investment in this area or you have the possibility of falling behind."
Asked if the State was spending enough on research, he replied: "I don't think so, but I think you are on the right trend.
"As your gross domestic product (GDP) grows, and as you increasingly move from an agricultural base to a knowledge-based infrastructure to drive the economy, R&D has to increase proportionately if you want to keep that position," he added.
"Typically, you see a direct proportion to the success of economies to the level of GDP invested in R&D. Several per cent is what the US targets. So if the sum total of R&D is not at least a few per cent of GDP, then I think the country is operating at a disadvantage."
Mr Barrett was in the Republic at the weekend to receive the Royal Dublin Society's (RDS) committee of science and industry gold medal, and an honorary doctorate from the Dublin Institute of Technology (DIT). He also met the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Mr Martin.
Last May, Intel announced that it planned to invest a further €1.6 billion in the Kildare site. Mr Barrett said the decision was evidence that the corporation believed that the Republic was still a good place to do business. The company will have invested a total of $7 billion (€5.2 billion) in the State by 2006.
Mr Barrett will become chairman of the company in May, when Mr Paul Otellini will succeed him as chief executive. The handover comes at a time when many commentators in the US believe that one of Intel's rivals, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) is on the verge of taking over the running in terms of developing new products and building relationships with key partners like Microsoft and Dell.
Mr Barrett is sceptical of the idea that AMD might steal the lead. "We've been competing with AMD for 25 years, so we're very used to competing with them," he says.
"There's been a lot of talk about them lately, but if you delve behind the talk a little bit, and look at the statistics that the various outside consultancies use, not Intel's statistics, you would find that, for the last five years, Intel's share of microprocessors has probably grown against AMD," he says. "Even though, if I read the press on a daily basis, I would think we were getting our rear end kicked."
He adds that Intel's relationships with Dell and Microsoft, its partners and key employers in the Republic, are as good as they have ever been. Of Microsoft, he says: "We're aligned 80 or 90 per cent of the time and we have a very successful relationship and I think today we are probably as well aligned as we've ever been. What always tends to get the press is the 10 per cent that we're not aligned."
The RDS presented Mr Barrett with his medal at a ceremony in Dublin on Saturday night. The organisation's president, Mr Liam Mescal, said that the award was as much a recognition of the US businessman's achievements in engineering and science as it was for Intel's contribution to the Republic's economy.
"But we are very much recognising the outstanding contribution of Intel, and the positive effect it has had on the Irish economy," Mr Mescal said.
Past president, Mr Liam Connellan, said the society had been awarding the gold medal on an annual basis since 1992.
