Research cutbacks could kill off the Government's stated goal to makethe Republic a world leader in science, writes Dick Ahlstrom, Science Editor.
Any failure by the Government to meet promised science spending commitments could cause untold damage to the Republic's research reputation abroad, the chairman of a key science advisory body has warned.
It could reverse the gains in science made over the past few years and thwart future economic development.
The influential Irish Council for Science, Technology and Innovation advises the Government on science policy and investment. Work done by the council prompted the Government to agree a €2.54 billion spending allocation through 2006, under the National Development Plan (NDP).
Elements of this allocation, which has transformed scientific research in this State, are now under serious threat.
Capital spending under the Higher Education Authority's Programme for Research in Third Level Institutions (PRTLI) was put on hold. Specifically, the money needed to build up and equip essential laboratories under the 2001 Cycle 3 allocation was "paused" following cutbacks imposed by the Department of Finance in the 2003 spending Estimates.
However, the cash needed to hire the scientists that would populate these laboratories was given.
This meant many institutions with Cycle 3 funding had top-quality research staff but no labs or equipment available to put them to work.
The result could be "severe damage" to our reputation as a centre for research, according to the chairman of the council and former president of the University of Limerick, Dr Edward Walsh.
Only last month the council issued a statement on State expenditure priorities for 2004. It said the State must "avoid a stop-go approach to research funding", adding that it was "critical" that funding agreed under the NDP be sustained.
Dr Walsh tells The Irish Times this morning on the Science Today page that the Government, in offering university facilities for international researchers willing to take up posts here, had made a very public international commitment to research.
Yet the stalled PRTLI "threatens the whole context of the international commitment", Dr Walsh stated. "Any faltering on Ireland's part can do major damage."
A key recommendation in the council's July document was that "funding commitments for the PRTLI should be reinstated in 2004".
It also called for the universities affected by the cutbacks to be allowed to borrow their way out of the supposedly temporary difficulties with loans.
A letter from the HEA to university heads has put paid to the notion that the current "pause" might be temporary.
It indicated that any research contracts awarded before November 14th, 2002 would be honoured in 2003.
Any contracts since that time "are to be deferred, pending the outcome of the capital review and or the publication of the Estimates for 2004".
Ominously, the HEA reported advice from the Department of Education and Science that "uncertainty surrounding the provision of Exchequer funding" could persist into later years.
The continuation of the capital spending cutbacks under Cycle 3 will be a bitter blow to the universities.
The Department has always maintained that the pause was "temporary" but it could never provide a date for a resumption of funding.
Only the research budget of the Minister for Education, Mr Dempsey, was affected in this way by the cutbacks.
The Tánaiste, Ms Harney, who is also Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, was able to protect her own science budget.
Her Department backs the other big research funding body, Science Foundation Ireland. The SFI programme is not affected by any funding pause.