Mr. Frank Vaughan:

To be clear, ICTU has addressed the need in the past for a very strong quality assurance system in the vocational and further education sector, and we published a document about this called A New Skills Policy for a New Economy. We understand and strongly support the idea of quality assurance procedures being in place. Much of the conversation has been about a quality assurance, with perhaps an inference that the community and voluntary sector is not concerned about quality assurance, but I really think that is not the case. We are talking about a different problem here, namely, how those providers are resourced and have the wherewithal to continue to deliver a quality assurance system in the services they provide.

I thank the Deputy for the question on issues arising from the networking. Frankly, I am not 100% clear about what the problems would be because we dealing with disparate and different organisations which have different characteristics, although they all share the fact that they are in the community and voluntary sector. I may stand corrected, but my understanding is that there are approximately 120 organisations among the AONTAS community education network and they are all rather different.

I note the comments made by QQI. There is scope for further dialogue. Part of the way we address this may be to look for shared procedures or pooling resources and experience to the fullest extent possible. However, I do not have the answers at the moment as to what the mechanisms are for how that might be achieved. Within the structures there is provision for shared validation. One provider can validate a programme and indicate others with whom it can be shared. This is something trade unions have been using. It is far more productive and efficient. For example, we might work on one programme which the ICTU might submit to the system and we would indicate that Mandate, SIPTU, the Technical Engineering and Electrical Union, the Irish Bank Officials Association and so on will share in that validation. I am a little unclear about the matter because we have not done it ourselves. If an initial fee is paid I am unclear on whether the shared providers would have to pay a further additional fee. If they did not, then within the existing procedure we might have a mechanism to address some of these concerns.