MINISTER FOR Enterprise Batt O’Keeffe has appointed a taskforce to identify priority areas for research and “smart” economy Government investment over the next five years.
The appointment of the 17-member steering group led by Intel Ireland general manager Jim O’Hara comes as Fine Gael uses its first Private Members’ time of the new Dáil term to condemn the Government’s targets for job creation as “bogus”.
In a separate development, the Unite trade union has written to all its 100,000 members urging them to call on elected representatives to “ stop public spending cuts and pursue the alternative policy of growing the economy”, according to regional secretary Jimmy Kelly.
Mr Kelly said data from the Central Statistics Office “shows beyond doubt that Government strategy is failing”.
Fine Gael jobs spokesman Richard Bruton said he would use the Dáil time to highlight “how the country’s hard-won strategy for sustainable jobs was destroyed by a Government determined to live on capital easy street”.
Fine Gael’s policies include selling old State assets to provide the funding for investment, taking the Ryanair challenge of scrapping the €10 airport tax with the promise of six million extra visitors, reducing employers’ PRSI and using the National Pension Reserve Fund to provide seed capital as credit for small business.
Mr O’Keeffe, announcing the steering group, said that this year the Government “is investing €598 million on academic and commercially-focused research and development spread across all Government departments and agencies”.
Known as the Research Prioritisation Steering Group, it will identify up to 20 target areas on which the Government should focus its research funding, and report back within a year.
