Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael)

I will take on board the suggestions made by the Deputy. I believe our Department is not particularly dogmatic on any aspect of policy development. The Springboard programme is proof of that. It is an innovative programme that seeks to support those who are unemployed and need to re-skill and to offer them another career choice in another career direction. The programme was developed as a specific response to enable unemployed people to access higher skills levels. It is free and the places available in it are free. There is no cost for the participants. The participants are also entitled to keep their existing social welfare supports while they are accessing the Springboard course.

An evaluation of the Springboard process and the outputs to date has been completed by the Higher Education Authority. It shows the programme has been very successful in reaching its target groups. It also identifies a number of improvements for the next phase of Springboard and these are being fed into the roll-out of Springboard 2012. The Deputy correctly mentioned the significant skills shortages in the ICT sector. We are now providing ICT conversion programmes, providing a further flexible learning opportunity to those who are qualified in one area and who would require little intervention to allow them to work in the ICT sector. We are targeting a number of places for that cohort over the next 12 months.

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