Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister. On the criticisms to which the Deputy referred, namely, that the training and further education provision engaged in across the further education and training sector is not aligning itself as it should with the needs of the labour market, I would argue that significant progress was made in that area under the previous Government.

One of the main thrusts of the reform programme of the new director general and board of FÁS since taking over has been to ensure all our provision is the best possible because, as the Deputy might be aware, the labour market is evolving and changing on an almost weekly basis. The director general and the board are ensuring there is significant, ongoing and in-depth forensic analysis of the labour market at national and regional level to ensure the training programmes and further education opportunities we are providing are responding to the needs of the labour market.

As the Deputy knows it will be the ambition of SOLAS to build on that progress and ensure every single piece of further education and training provided to our learners empowers them to move closer to the labour market or directly back into it. It is envisaged that research will be carried out at national level by SOLAS with a well-resourced research unit and, more importantly perhaps, by individual education and training boards, ETBs. They will also have a role in carrying out research into the skills shortages that are occurring on a regional basis.

For example, I am from Galway where a significant medical devices and ICT cluster is emerging on the edge of the city. There is already excellent work being done by FÁS, Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology, GMIT, and NUI Galway in responding to the unique skills required for that particular sector. One would expect that in Cork, pharmaceuticals would be a focus and in Dublin the focus would be on financial services and ICT. ETBs locally will work very closely with industry. There is provision for there to be significant co-operation between industry and enterprise in each region to ensure not alone that are we responding to the skills deficit, but also the curriculums being designed to respond to those deficits are designed through collaboration between ETBs and local enterprises.