Tom Fleming (Kerry South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I compliment the delegation on its survey and on producing a skills audit report. Some of its findings are alarming. At present 450,000 people are out of work in this country but 4,500 jobs remain unfilled in the sector. In the short term 10,000 new jobs are in danger of going to foreign employees. In other words, the companies must seek people from outside of the country to fill the vacancies. That is shameful and farcical in the current economic climate.

Recently an interesting Brightwater IT survey 2013 was published. It found that companies proclaim that colleges are not equipping IT graduates with the necessary skills to get a job. The company executives have warned that universities focus too much on theory and not enough on practice and teach old computer languages that are no longer used in the workplace. We are like the Third World in terms of getting up to speed in order to attract foreign direct investment. They must have no confidence in the country.

I commend the efforts made by today's delegation but it will take a lot to catch up. Progress must be made in the sector. Furious Tribe has its headquarters in Dublin but located its business outside of the country. Its executive manager is Mr. Patrick Leddy and the company employs up to 24 people. The company had to move to Poland and he has set up training courses there. In order to fill the void in the sector we will end up sourcing graduates from Poland and other Eastern European countries. How can we fast track training here when the Department of Education and Skills, the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Innovation and all of the other stakeholders are involved? A lot of work needs to be done. We cannot wait six months or a year. We need to act today and I hope that today's meeting will be fruitful.