Dr Liam Downey's eyes are watering, a reaction to the city air, even in his office in Teagasc's headquarters in the leafy suburb of Sandymount in Dublin - but then the director of the agriculture and food development authority has just returned from four weeks in west Cork.

For the last month, he has been walking in the hills every day and pursuing another great interest, archaeology. He is attempting, with retired local schoolteacher, Mr Connie Murphy, to solve the puzzle of the connection between Ogham-style markings at Pluis na Scrib on the Beara Peninsula and similar markings found in Wyoming.

It's 9 a.m. and already Dr Downey has been at work for two hours. At lunch-time he will jog in Belfield and after a quick dinner at home will spend another two hours back at the office.

Since taking over at Teagasc five years ago, his work has been prodigious. He formulated a five-year strategy for services to the food and agriculture industries; developed a computer model for projecting the growth of the agrifood industry; set up the Walsh Fellowship scheme to train young scientists for research in agriculture; brought agricultural education into the mainstream, with courses now available through the CAO, like other college courses; developed new systems for transmitting research to farmers through the advisory service; and developed an international network of scientific contacts in agri-food research.

But, at 63, Dr Downey still says: "I have a lot of energy. I can't work fast but I kind of keep going forever."

The Cork city-born biochemist has been head of three other major State agencies - An Foras Forbartha, ACOT (the farm advisory and training body), and the Bovine TB Eradication Board.

When not busily writing in longhand - he will not use a computer - he travels extensively on business, usually searching out scientific experts who could be of use to Teagasc. "One thing I have been very good at all my life is international contacts. I'm not good at going to embassy receptions, but I can find scientists that should come to Ireland."

This knack of "acquiring" top expertise is going to be vital as Teagasc embarks on its major agri-food biotechnological research programme in crops, livestock production and food manufacture, with £25 million (€31.75 million) funding from the Government - although Dr Downey says that £100 million in total will be needed over five years.

World-class scientists will have to be attracted here and Dr Downey says this can be done using a "visiting scientist" scheme he developed in Teagasc. This involves identifying key people in research in other countries and bringing them here for a period of a year or more to develop research teams around them from some 25 young scientists now being recruited.

"A number of high-powered scientists in the US can be attracted here and they won't cost a fortune. Whatever it is about science in Ireland, the Americans find it hugely attractive. They want to understand what's going on in Europe and we are the gateway," he says.

One of the world's leading biotechnologists, Dr Martina McGloughlin, from Davis University in California (and Tuam, Co Galway), while not coming as a visiting scientist, will advise Teagasc on its major biotechnology programme.

Although he chaired the natural resources task force, the largest panel of the Foresight fund, which is disbursing some £560 million over the next five years, he says the manner in which Foresight envisages spending money on scientific research is not necessarily correct from an agricultural point of view.

"They want to build up in Ireland a world-class capability in basic research in biotechnology. No-one could disagree with that because it will help to embed international biotechnology companies in Ireland. But the agrifood sector is already embedded here. All we want to do is keep it here. A whole different set of priorities must arise here."

He says the two central and inter-related goals of a national biotechnology R&D programme must be to monitor, evaluate and harness appropriate international developments in crops and livestock production and food manufacture, and to provide society with scientifically-based confidence in biotechnology. This monitoring function must include, for example, concurrent assessment of agronomic performance and environmental risks of transgenic crops in Ireland; applying gene mapping to improve the efficiency of plant breeding; developing DNA-based diagnostic tests for plant and animal diseases; identifying genetic markers for improved animal growth; and developing improved food cultures and novel enzymes for food products.

"We must have the capacity to understand and appreciate what is going on abroad, otherwise we will be `importing technology in the dark'."

On consumer confidence, he says: "Society must have trustworthy, credible and impartial reassurances in relation to the environmental and food safety risks that may be associated with developments in biotechnology.

"People are afraid of biotechnology, GMOs and other developments of this nature because of the uncertainties, and they do not see benefits in the food area as they have seen in pharmaceuticals. Everyone talks about the risks associated with it; it isn't the risks, it's the uncertainties. Biotechnology is all about uncertainty.

"We are trying to talk to society about the risks when we should be talking about the uncertainties and how we are going to build bridges that cross that uncertainty. I can think of no specific aspect I'm concerned about. It's an enormously powerful technology and there are bound to be uncertainties."

However, he does have concerns about scientists policing scientists. "A recent development is the growing preoccupation of researchers with taking out patents to protect intellectual property rights of their own. Who's minding the house? I think this is a huge social question.

"I don't think we in the public institutions should be arguing that we should be made referee and at the same time allowing independent researchers to take out patents. This is a big ethical thing in the US."

And he insists: "Teagasc and the universities must become the referee. Otherwise biotechnology may suffer the same fate as food irradiation."

He is scathing about the failure of independent institutions, especially in Britain, to evaluate and embrace food irradiation some years ago. He believes it could have prevented the development of new variant CJD in humans from BSE-infected cattle: "I believe it's quite a safe technology and, probably, if we had used it worldwide we wouldn't have the food safety problems we have today."

He says Teagasc now intends to introduce training for the food industry along the lines of farm education and training, based at Dunsinea in Co Dublin. This involves the development of a nationally-accredited food industry training system, which, he says, would, if industry-led, "do more to raise the long-term competitiveness of the sector than increased expenditure on research and development".

Dr Downey, who says he "sees science in pictures", has a spectacular list of educational qualifications. After graduating from UCC, he received his PhD from Reading University, from where he was head-hunted for the dairy and food research section of the then An Foras Taluntais at Moorepark, near Fermoy.

"I had two ambitions in life: to get a DSc and to be a director of a research institute," he recalls. "I knew that if I continued blowing into test tubes, they would never happen. I left research altogether in 1974 and went into the Department of Finance."

There followed five or six years of constant travel to Brussels, sitting on scientific and other committees before he went to An Foras Forbartha, the now-abolished institute for physical planning and construction research - an agency he thinks is sorely lacking in the Ireland of today. He says he was surprised when he was appointed head of ACOT and the poisoned chalice was the bovine TB eradication scheme.

After several years, he concluded TB could not be eradicated; only a laboratory test, coupled with a vaccine for badgers (thought to spread the disease), will ever work, he believes.

In spite of his formidable academic record, it is an honorary degree - Doctor of Laws from the NUI, which he received at the same time as Gregory Peck - that chuffs him most. And becoming director of ACOT was another pleasant shock. "I'm not being modest at all. That and Doctor of Laws were the two biggest surprises of my life."