Efforts in Ireland to identify the country's future research priorities should concentrate on creating new high-quality jobs.

This is the assertion made by the minister for enterprise, trade and innovation, who wants the group selected to draw up an action plan for public investment in this area to "set aside sectoral interests" and focus on boosting employment and economic recovery.

Batt O'Keeffe explained that such activities underpin industry, with €600 million a year invested in research.

In his first remarks to experts charged with setting future strategy for development investment, he stated: "The steering group's work is a major national exercise of structured stakeholder engagement aimed at setting out where best to focus our work and tailor our investment."

Jim O'Hara, former manager of Intel Ireland, has been appointed to lead the body, which will identify ten to 20 target areas as government research priorities for the coming five years.

Mr O'Keeffe recently hailed a sharp fall in the number of people being made redundant in Ireland as evidence that the economy is recovering from the global downturn, with layoffs falling by 40 per cent year-on-year in October to 3,910.

Posted by Alex Donnell