Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 36:

In page 9, subsection (5), line 6, after “with” to insert the following:“FET providers including community education providers, employers, adult learners,”.

I am a bit loth to withdraw this amendment because we have already withdrawn a number of amendments concerning the functions of the service. This amendment deals with the preparation of the strategy. The service may, in the course of preparing a strategy, consult with training bodies and providers of further education. I feel strongly that we must expand on this and see no reason we cannot. My amendment calls for consultation with FET providers, including community education providers, employers and adult learners.

If we are to have a conversation on this amendment also, we will have a lot of conversations to deal with between now and Report Stage. It is all well and good to agree to withdraw an amendment on the basis of a proposed conversation, but will we genuinely have a conversation or discussion on this? Are we being given a commitment here that we can have a private meeting of the education committee, attended by the Minister and the drafters of the Bill, at which we can have a serious conversation on the matter, or is it a case in which we withdraw the amendment and we are then given a Report Stage deadline and we end up resubmitting our amendments for Report Stage? Neither I nor anybody else wants to see that happening. We would much prefer to have a private meeting with the Minister and drafters where we can thrash out some of the issues. If we cannot thrash them out, we will resubmit them.

We have withdrawn a lot of amendments here and that is being done in good faith. We talked about the functions and now we are talking about the preparation of a strategy. We cannot afford to let these issues drop. If there is a genuine commitment on the part of the Minister of State to sit down with the education committee in private to look at what is being proposed regarding the inclusion of adult learners and community education providers and if we can have a serious conversation about how this can be included in the legislation, I am willing to withdraw the amendment. However, if we do not get that commitment, there will be a raft of amendments resubmitted on Report Stage and we will have this conversation again. Instead of having votes on Committee Stage, we will have votes in the Dáil. This is not about pushing things to a vote for the sake of a vote; it is about having a serious conversation.