Campus gets new science building

Ireland's ability to attract high-technology investment could be undermined without a well-resourced university sector, the president of NUI Maynooth has said.

Dr W.J. Smyth was speaking yesterday during a ceremony to mark the official opening of the campus's new £10 million science building. The ceremony was performed by the President, Mrs McAleese.

IBEC in a recent submission to Government had rated education, science and technology as second only to transport and telecommunications in providing "the critical infrastructural element for future national economic development", Dr Smyth said.

With the investment the university was giving expression to its belief "that unless Ireland strongly supports teaching and research in the basic sciences it will be impossible to generate nationally the knowledge base for future applied scientific research", he said.

The building will accommodate the core science subjects, chemistry and experimental physics, together with research elements of space science. The new building replaces facilities including prefabricated structures purchased from the nuns in Clane and Victorian-era rooms formerly occupied by seminarians, Dr Smyth said.

"Redolent with past histories, and character-forming in their austerity, such facilities were certainly not appropriate for university teaching and research at the close of the 20th century."

The building would house 800 undergraduates, postgraduates and post-doctoral fellows, he said. It was opened at a time when universities in Britain were closing science departments because of falling student numbers. "Only by the creation of a well-educated and flexible work force can Ireland hope to build upon its technological and economic successes of recent years."