Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Cosgrave for his presentation.

I have spoken to a number of business people about jobs. I spoke to Seán O'Sullivan from the television programme "Dragons' Den" and he expressed a strong view that many job vacancies here cannot be filled because we do not have people with the required qualifications. Last Monday I spoke to a person who employs 425 people. He told me that he offered a job to someone recently but the person refused it because he or she was better off remaining on social welfare rather than take a job with a starting salary of €30,000.

We have a good third level education system but it does not respond fast enough to market demand. Let us take the simple area of law in which I am involved. Every year Ireland produces a large number of law graduates but there are no jobs for them and the university sector has not responded accordingly. What changes would Mr. Cosgrave make to get third level institutions to respond faster to market demands? Ireland seems to be way behind when it comes to responding to market demands.

Another problem is that employers no longer compete. For example, from 1998 to 2004 my business had to compete with another legal practice down the road in order to retain employees. Now many employers must compete with the social welfare system when they want to fill a vacancy. How would Mr. Cosgrave deal with the issue?