Research Funding
Dail Éireann — 2025-12-11
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Richard Boyd Barrett (PBP), Dún Laoghaire

First of all, only 30% of the people in question get the Research Ireland €25,000. That increase happened because of a sustained campaign by postgraduate workers and PhD researchers, but huge numbers of them do not get it. It should be a minimum requirement and €25,000 is also, frankly, poverty wages. It is a stipend, of course, so those in receipt of it do not get any of the normal benefits associated with working even though they are workers. In fact, I met with AMLÉ and the Postgraduate Workers Association during the week and one of their biggest demands was to be treated as workers, as is the case in other countries. This Government often goes on about research and development but, compared with their international counterparts, including in Germany and the Netherlands and best practice in the rest of Europe, our researchers, the people who actually do the front-line research and teach people in our higher level education institutions and universities, are treated terribly. Is the Minister not going to change that?

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2025-12-11/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:48+00:00
Sitting date: 2025-12-11