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

The very best figure of €25,000 is poverty level. In a cost of living crisis and with the cost of accommodation, it is poverty level and they do not get any of the benefits because it is a stipend, even though in reality it is work. They do not get maternity leave, sick pay or any of the normal benefits workers would receive, even though their counterparts in the Netherlands and Germany get much higher wages and are treated as workers, with a sliding scale of wages. That is good treatment of researchers, whereas ours are living in poverty in the most precarious of situations. I contrast it with the fact that hundreds of millions of euro extra were given out in the research and development tax credit during the budget. The big winners were the big corporations. The research and development tax credit is now up to €1.4 billion, with most of that going to a small number of multinationals. A small portion of that money could lift our PhD researchers out of poverty. Will the Minister address the fact that these PhD researchers who keep our system going are living in poverty?

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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