Mr. George Ryan:

We have looked at the situation in Germany and members have heard the international presentations. Germany has had a system like this in place for up to 500 years. We might wonder how hard it will be for Ireland to make the change. It is a cultural thing. German experts and those who advocate the model say one cannot, as such, just transport the German system into Ireland. However, one can learn the lessons from it. One of a number of countries we have studied is the United Kingdom, including Northern Ireland, which has been on a journey of change. There is a FIT Northern Ireland initiative. In the past six years and spanning Labour Party and Conservative leadership, there has been a common agreement on the need to move towards modern apprenticeships. It started under the Labour Party and has been continued under the Conservative Party. In the past five years 25,000 people have gone through the advanced apprenticeship programme in ICT. We have looked closely at it and discussed it with Microsoft, a member of our board, which has a 3,000 person initiative within the figure of 25,000 - 1,000 people a year over three years. We can see it working in a country that is not in a stronger position. The United Kingdom has a 6% apprenticeship rate, whereas the rate in Germany is over 50% and perhaps up to 70%. As it has been quite successful, we have tracked it. While Ireland does not have the same culture as Germany, there are other countries which have made the journey.

While FIT is not a schools initiative and is, rather, focused on reducing long-term unemployment through training, we have nevertheless seen that schools do not have enough information. As part of a gesture towards dealing with that issue, we are supporting this year a summer school at the College of Computer Training on Westmoreland Street in Dublin for 300 transition and fifth year students. They will spend half a day a week for three weeks learning about programming, networks and mobile applications. This curriculum is not available in schools and hard-pressed teachers cannot necessarily teach outside their curriculum. We have started this small initiative with the college and must acknowledge the role of Microsoft. We would like to see more of this taking place to allow young people to experience ICT as developers and creators rather than as users.

I have not answered all of Deputy Anthony Lawlor's questions, but I cannot talk about Springboard as we do not operate the programme.

FIT operates MOMENTUM, the new Government programme, which funds IT and other skills development in the further education system. We have approximately 500 participants and we are seeing strong engagement by industry in terms of internships. We were talking to our chairman before the meeting. His company is not even waiting for internships in some cases; it is hiring people straight from the programme without going through a three-month internship. We are seeing what the skills audit is saying in practice. There is a demand for people with practical skills. Another board member talked about the urgency relating to this and we agree with that. However, we also see a great deal of political interest in this. People pick up on a good idea and wonder why we are not doing something, because it is obvious. We agree that it is obvious. It is not a new suggestion, as it has been adopted in different countries.