Call to make Dublin a 'knowledge city'

The Dublin region must improve its research capability and infrastructure so it can compete for "knowledge economy" investments with international cities, according to a Dublin Chamber of Commerce report.

Martin Murphy, managing director of HP Ireland and chair of the committee that wrote the report, said the 10 recommendations had been devised to compensate for a lack of Government leadership in the formation of a knowledge economy.

Mr Murphy called on the Taoiseach to take ownership of the plan to ensure that the various departments and agencies achieve the targets contained in the report.

"Ireland's future lies in Dublin becoming a knowledge city with internationally recognised infrastructure, skills, productivity and competitiveness," he said.

The report notes that, increasingly, it is the infrastructure of a city region, rather than nation state, that is the criteria upon which investment decisions are based.

For Dublin to remain attractive, it has to attract creative talent, improve its infrastructure and to brand itself as a knowledge city by 2012, the report says.

Mr Murphy said the Republic does not have adequate numbers of senior researchers to meet the targets in the Strategy for Science and Technology and had no option but to attract them.

The Dublin Chamber recommended the introduction of a targeted tax-relief scheme for researchers.

The report also recommends the introduction of wireless internet on all Dublin public transport systems.

"We are trying to get people to get out of cars and use public transport. [ WiFi] is a very good incentive," he said.

This is a scaled-down version of the Dublin City Council proposal to make the entire city WiFi accessible, a project ruled out by the European Commission on state aid grounds.

However, Ronan King, president of the Dublin Chamber, said that despite the ruling, the plan for city-wide WiFi had not been abandoned and that talks with a number of private-sector firms had taken place.