Gerard Craughwell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the gentlemen for attending. I am delighted to say that a number of my former students have passed through their organisation on work experience. I commend Camara on its work. As the head of a large computer department, one of my problems every year was how to dispose of machines that were beyond their sell-by dates, so to speak, but still perfectly serviceable. Many times, I tried to pass them on to national and secondary schools.

Until Camara Ireland came along there was nowhere to get rid of them. We ended up dumping perfectly serviceable machines purely because they could not run the software we wished to run, particularly in the multimedia area.

What the organisation is doing is great. I would support greater roll-out in Ireland and more of the assets used in Ireland. The State has already paid for those assets. While it is commendable to send them to Africa and various other parts of the world, there should be greater take-up in this country. For that reason and considering the job Camara Ireland does, I would support some funding going to it. However, it should be a double edged sword whereby we fund the organisation's capacity to recycle machines but the organisation should in turn take on students who are undertaking ICT maintenance programmes and, perhaps, programmers and people working in the area of operating systems and networking, to develop a service to schools which otherwise could not afford it. I realise the competition people will jump in straight away and ask about the private sector, but it is more important that we have computers in classrooms available to students for the schools that cannot afford them. Would the witness be interested in some type of partnership whereby the organisation would get some funding but, in return, it would train people?

With regard to literacy and numeracy, there are many applications to assist students with literacy and numeracy and many online free e-learning platforms that can be used. Again, I would like Camara Ireland to develop some expertise in that area and to provide support to schools which otherwise could not afford it. I agree with Deputy O'Brien on the matter of special needs. Computers have taken children with special needs leaps and bounds ahead of where they were.

I commend what the organisation is doing and I would support us trying to work towards a partnership between Camara Ireland and, perhaps, the education and training boards. That might be the way to proceed. I would welcome comments from the witnesses on that.