Address by Micheál Martin, Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment at the Launch of Science Week 2004

Good Morning.

Thank you Martin, it is a pleasure to be here this morning for the launch of Science Week 2004. I would also like to thank Leo Enright Chairman of Discover Science and Engineering and Peter Brabazon, Director of the programme, for their kind invitation to be here this morning.

I also want to commend illusionist and magician Keith Barry, who I understand is himself a chemistry graduate, for lending his support to the launch of Science Week. We would all like to create the same excitement around the sciences as Keith does around his own brand of science.

I am delighted to have been invited to formally launch the Week, which is now in its eighth year and continues to grow from strength to strength since it started in 1997.

With over 350 events scheduled across the length and breadth of the country it is now Ireland’s biggest single awareness event and one which has the support and captured the enthusiasm of so many people in business, industry and education. I am particularly pleased that Science Week continues to capture the imaginations of so many of our children and teenagers and indeed their parents.

As I looked across the programme of events for the week I was struck by how so many of the events were about learning about the sciences through fun, excitement and innovation. How many of you have tickled a tarantula, cuddled a cockroach or munched a cricket? Would you like to see how your body works from the outside in? Perhaps you are already taking part in the nationwide experiment that has asked children to record sightings of the Daddy Longlegs Spider, which is becoming more common in Ireland due to climatic changes. These are only a few examples of the numerous diverse activities on offer, throughout the country, during Science Week.

Science and technology is all around us. It affects all of us in our daily lives, when we turn on a light, boil a kettle, drive our cars, watch TV, surf the internet or text our friends we use technologies which were developed by scientists and engineers.

Science has been to the forefront of economic development since the 1980’s. Because of the strong skills pool developed in Ireland, we have become the location of choice for manufacturing and international services in areas such as electronics, pharmaceuticals, medical devices as well as other sectors. An adequate supply of suitably qualified people is critical to continuing our economic growth and enursing sustainable employment for all into the future.

While much of our focus has been on encouraging post primary students to choose science, engineering and technology at third level I am also very concious of the need to interest young people in the sciences at the earliest stage in their learning cycle in primary and indeed pre-primary cycles. I know that later this month Discover Science and Engineering will be announcing an expansion of its activities at primary level and I am looking forward to hearing more about that.

I want to commend the Discover Science and Engineering team on their hard work in the development of Science Week 2004 and indeed in a range of many other initiatives, including the wonderful Scope TV programme which is shown on RTE 2 on Tuesdays at 7.30 pm.

Finally, I would like to encourage as many people as possible to get involved in Science Week this year. To the boys and girls from St. Colmcille’s National school, Knocklyon, I will leave you with some food for thought. Be curious and explore. Ask Questions, Get Answers. But above all enjoy it and look out for that Daddy Long legs!!