Ireland is dangerously dependent on imports of natural gas. Bringing home-grown gas ashore and retrieving onshore reserves under western and northwestern counties can end this reliance and transform Ireland into a natural gas exporter. For more, read ‘Think Tank’ article published in The Sunday Times, below, on 11.03.2012
Archive for the ‘OPINION’ Category
7 Nov
Let’s draw a Finn line in education
This article was first published in The Sunday Times on 06/11/2011 With Irish secondary-school students still performing poorly in maths and science compared with their peers in other developed nations, it is time to look at the success of the acknowledged “market leader”: Finland. Finnish students have consistently ranked highly in maths and science in [...]
31 Jan
Time and tide wait for no man
First published in The Sunday Times, 30th Jan. 2011 IMAGE: Waves seen here on the right below crashing ashore onto the Dingle Peninsula, a rugged, beautiful area of southwest Ireland [Credit: killarneylake.com] There are few places where waves crash so powerfully and consistently on the shoreline as the west of Ireland. The USA, South Africa, [...]
4 Jan
Israel should be Ireland’s science & research model
Published 12/12/2010 in The Sunday Times (Irish ed.) Since the late 1990s Ireland has pumped billions into science and research, and completely transformed the landscape for science in Ireland – for the better. This money was spent on supporting research talent and building facilities for them to work in. That’s all good, but the strategy [...]
16 Jul
Ray of light for Irish science
The €359 million in funds for research announced today by the Government under its Programme for Research in Third-Level Institutions (PRTLI) offers hope for the beleagured Irish scientific community. Since the arrival of Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) in 2000 and the PRTLI fund in 1998, Irish science had up until the downturn got used to large [...]
4 May
Lack of law on stem cells is foolish and cowardly
The following text was first published in The Sunday Times, 2nd May 2010 Unlike the UK, Ireland has no legislation governing stem-cell research. This has prompted University College Cork and Trinity College Dublin to draw up their own guidelines for scientists who wish to undertake such research on campus. The consequences of this legislative inaction [...]
16 Dec
What’s wrong with donating excess fertility embryos to research?
The Supreme Court ruling this week that human embryos do not have the same legal protection under the Irish constitution as the ‘unborn’ child in the womb, has major implications for couples undergoing fertility treatment here. For many couples, fertility treatment means the man’s sperm and the woman’s egg are brought together in the lab [...]
25 Nov
Too much expected from third-level
Too much faith has been invested in researchers at 3rd level to commercialise ideas, start new companies, and create jobs.
6 Aug
Untapped riches on the seabed
Aggregates, or sand and gravel, are vital to any building project, large or small. At the moment in Ireland these materials are sourced from a diminishing number of land-based quarries. That’s expensive and bad for the environment. There is an alternative, however. Ireland is blessed with large deposits of aggregates at the bottom of the [...]
6 Aug
Incineration is preferable to landfill
Ireland has a dangerous habit: it’s called landfill. Unless measures are taken to break the habit and encourage incineration, we won’t be able to deal with our waste problem. We continue to turn our backs on incineration despite the fact that other countries in Europe consider it to be a ‘greener’ option than landfill. This [...]
