Mr. Tony Donohoe:

I will take up Senator Humphreys' second point on age discrimination and older people. I fully agree with the point he makes; I have more than a vested interested in this. On a more serious point, it is a serious issue, and the issue of pensions and retirement ages is within the remit of the committee. It is very tricky and we need to make a start on it because these matters are all connected. Pension coverage, specifically private sector pension coverage, is alarmingly low. We have these anomalies in respect of retirement age now whereby it is out of kilter with the State pension age. I am not sure I would characterise it as discrimination, but Ireland is a bit out of step with the rest of Europe in this regard. I sit on the BusinessEurope social affairs committee, which is basically a European IBEC. My colleagues there all talk about how we might keep people in the labour force for longer. Europe has a labour shortage, and BusinessEurope sees that we are living longer, are healthier, etc. However, it is quite complex because Ireland's is a relatively young population and we need progression opportunities for young people. Squaring this is quite tricky. We are talking to the Workplace Relations Commission about retirement ages and codes of practice. It is a very interesting area, which I would love an opportunity to explore at a future date.

Senator Humphreys also raised the issue of lifelong learning. We are very bad at this. Our lifelong learning rate is 7%; the European norm is 15%. In some Scandinavian countries it is over 30%. One could speculate on the reasons for this, but we need to consider, for example, how we use the national training fund, which has over the past number of years been used for activation schemes such as Springboard and Momentum - and quite properly. However, we need to start rebalancing it towards upskilling and encouraging lifelong learning, particularly in the workplace. It is a significant amount of money. Employers contribute 0.7% to the fund. It varies each year but it is currently approximately €340 million. We could probably use it a bit more constructively. I do not want to get into community employment, CE, which is a bit like JobBridge. People take up positions on it very quickly. It does not have very good employment progression outcomes. The research on it is quite old so it should be revisited. However, it obviously fulfils a really important role in communities. It is when there is this confusion surrounding objectives that schemes become less effective. The scheme fulfils a role

That should be stated and it should be designed around it.

Deputy Brady has gone, but he was talking about entry-level jobs such as deli positions. It is important to retain that type of opportunity in any work experience scheme. I tried to draw this out a bit in my opening remarks. Employability, turning up to work on time and how one interacts with people are basic skills. To be quite honest, they do not exist at all levels. One could argue that some graduates do not have them either. They are very important. They are only gained in a contextual space in the workplace. Those jobs are valuable and we should give people the opportunity to break the cycle of no job, no experience, no experience, no job at every level.

There were some comments about the abuse of zero-hour contracts and precarious work. The University of Limerick study on the prevalence of zero-hour contracts and low-hour contracts does not back that up. In terms of statistics, it found that 2.6% of employees are on variable part-time work, 5.3% have constantly variable hours and much fewer than that are on low hours. Again, it is one of these things that becomes an urban myth. Unfortunately, it has the potential for some unintended consequences, particularly when legislation arises from it, because one person's precarious work is another person's opportunity for flexible employment conditions. Employers are already implementing a large raft of European social legislation, which is quite proper and should be there, but given the uncertain economic outlook, I do not believe it is the cleverest thing to do to impose more restrictions on how employers run their businesses. They should work within the existing law, but I do not think we need more legislation because it would push up costs, reduce opportunities for people who genuinely want flexible contracts and, ultimately, cost jobs.

Deputy Carey directed two questions to me about skills shortages and examples of inconsistencies in services. Skills shortages are now becoming quite widespread. Even during the recession, we were always hearing about ICT skills shortages. There is a global shortage of ICT talent. We live in a technological age. Across the world, competition for people in that area remains and will continue to remain. However, we are now also seeing skills shortages in areas like construction, hospitality, which has been a problem for quite a while, and retail. It is much more widespread. It is probably a good challenge to have. It is the product of an economic recovery. How do we address that? Dr. Peter Rigney mentioned apprenticeships. It is about aligning the education system and the business sector much more tightly and getting those conversations going.

Deputy Carey asked for examples of inconsistencies in services. I do not want to name the unfortunate Intreo offices or regions. I will tell the Deputy how that is expressed to us or how we see it. Basically, there are people who have been referred to companies from the Intreo service who are still not prepared for the job interview. We have all mentioned guidance and preparation in one shape or form. In terms of their CVs and how they present themselves, it is still not optimal. That is the feedback we have received from some of our companies. That is really important because we are anxious that people go to Intreo first.

We all know that in the 1980s FÁS or AnCo was never the first place one would have gone to find an employee. One would have taken other avenues. I am hopeful one of the legacies of this recession will be that we will have a fit for purpose public employment service because we entered it without one, but we need to complete the guidance element. It needs to be joined with the education sector and the counselling element. JobPath is in its infancy, but I urge Deputies and Senators to take the opportunity to visit a JobPath office to see what is happening in it. It is instructive in how those involve prepare people for interviews, something they do very well.