Mr. Seán Ó Foghlú:

Touching on the maladministration first, I do not want to go back over old ground but Ms McManus covered that with the committee when she was here in February of last year and indicated that there had been communications issues. Perhaps that is what the Minister had been referring to. She indicated that she had written to the European Commission about that following the Minister's comments at the time.

Deputy McDonald raises an important issue. We have had some discussion about this already today. It is not just a question about the EGF. It is a question about our further education and training and our higher education interventions generally, but, obviously, it arises particularly in the context of the EGF. In a challenged labour market, how effective is it possible to be in getting people back to work?

In the EGF, we have certainly learned from the various programmes that we have and the way in which we work with the workers, especially in TalkTalk, which is not yet completed and for which we cannot yet have the outcome data, to design a package which suits their needs best in the context of where they are living and where they wish to work. It enhances the likelihood of employment as much as we possibly can in the current labour market. Obviously, it cannot always be an immediate likelihood, given the challenging time we face, but it certainly enhances their likelihood as much as we can.

The figures we have for Dell, Waterford Crystal and SR Technics show that, of those surveys, a relatively high proportion were in employment 12 months after the post EGF final report: 44.85% for Dell, 58% for Waterford Crystal and 53% for SR Technics. Then there are some others who are in education and training. That is not to say that we should not seek to have a higher proportion in employment over time. Of course, we should.

There is the nature of the various elements which we fund under the EGF - ensuring that the learning opportunities are accredited is a key item; ensuring that it is not necessarily just that people can follow learning opportunities where they are provided by State-funded providers and that they can also access private provision; the support we give to people to pay for the fees, whether for further or higher education; the enhanced educational costs that we are willing to pay as well, which we have paid under TalkTalk; and the elements of customisation that we have been able to mix-in having regard to each of the groups, which has been very important.

As I was saying earlier - I know that we are in a very challenging time - the extent of the people under the various programmes on construction who have entered the labour market is relatively high given the negativity that we hear about construction and about former construction workers. We fully accept that it could be better, but if we look at our surveys, for example, on the basis of the Revenue data and on the basis of Department of Social Protection, DSP, data, 43% of those who completed NACE 41, 41.5% of NACE 43, and 62.9% of NACE 71 are back in employment, and we have on active labour market programmes approximately 10%, 11% or 12% in each of those categories. That is not to say that we would be satisfied at all with the 30.6%, the 29% and 14.8%, respectively, who are unemployed, or the other, which is 13.7%, 17.8% and 11.4%, respectively, which could be, for example, either that they have left the workforce and have retired or that they have emigrated. We are getting more effective data in terms of the outcomes from the EGF which if helpful to us.

Furthermore, and coming back to the broad point, we need to continually work on the labour market relevance of further education and training programmes. NESC is undertaking a piece of work for us at present. We have issued advice to the VEC sector to try to ensure that it is making its programmes as relevant to the labour market as possible. The establishment of SOLAS and the initiatives that it will take over time will assist and enhance the labour market relevance. We are also reviewing the apprenticeship which we see as an important element in terms of the labour market.

We also have a number of important interventions. Momentum is one, which FÁS is undertaking on our behalf, which involves public and private providers. Springboard, which involves part-time higher education, is important. The ICT Skills is more of a higher education intervention but is particularly aimed at ensuring that we have enough people to move into the ICT skills area where a lot of employment is available at present. We are trying to ensure that we have a balanced provision across further and higher education of relevance to employment, and it is absolutely vital that we seek to enhance that.