Mr. Tim Fenn:

I thank the Chairman and members for inviting the Irish Hotels Federation, IHF, to address the Joint Committee on Education and Skills. We have submitted a detailed document and I will now endeavour to cover the main points in the next five minutes.

The IHF is the national representative organisation of the hotel and guest house sector in Ireland. As a key stakeholder in Irish tourism, we work with our industry partners to ensure the right conditions are in place for tourism to grow and prosper, thereby contributing to recovery and job creation in the economy.

Tourism is one of Ireland’s largest indigenous industries. In 2016, tourism generated total revenues of €8.25 billion for the economy and accounted for 4% of gross national product. It contributed an estimated €1.9 billion in taxes to the Exchequer. Having supported the creation of over 50,000 new jobs during the past five years, tourism now employs more than 220,000 people throughout the country, which is equivalent to 11% of total employment. The industry is creating approximately 10,000 additional new jobs each year. The IHF plays an active role in developing strategies for sustainable training to address this growing demand. We promote excellence in human resource management and development across the hotels sector and support innovation in attracting, motivating and developing employees at all levels. This includes working with State agencies and education providers at a national level to develop appropriate training and education models for the industry.

On behalf of the IHF, Michael Vaughan, on my left, currently chairs the hospitality skills oversight group, which was established by Government last year to monitor progress on the implementation of recommendations of the report by the expert group on future skills needs. This oversight group provides a valuable forum for ongoing collaboration among industry stakeholders and State bodies.

With regard to career opportunities in tourism and hospitality, with tourism now on track to create a further 40,000 new jobs by 2021, the industry offers tremendous employment and development opportunities for people across a variety of skills levels, backgrounds and interests, particularly for young people entering the labour market. Career paths include chefs, accommodation assistants, receptionists, positions in food and beverage, sales and marketing, personnel management, catering, leisure centre management and roles in management, IT and finance. The industry, however, now faces serious challenges in sourcing suitably qualified staff with the right skills, including an annual requirement to recruit 3,000 qualified employees at craft level.

With regard to promoting careers in tourism and hospitality, the federation works closely with our industry partners and State bodies to increase awareness of the wealth of employment opportunities in Irish tourism. In September 2016, the IHF and the Irish Hospitality Institute, IHI, launched a national tourism careers programme in partnership with Fáilte Ireland to highlight the many career entry options available. The programme, which is being run in close collaboration with tourism and hospitality businesses, is designed to enable second level students aged between 15 to 18 to explore the full range of exciting career paths and educational and training options available throughout the country. The programme includes tourism insight,which is an interactive online programme for students and teachers; the Get a Life in Tourismmagazine, copies of which were given to members; student work experience programmes; and school talks and career events, which industry professionals attend.

With regard to education and training requirements, a wide range of third level courses in tourism and hospitality are provided throughout the country, particularly by the institutes of technology, IOTS. However, they do not fully satisfy industry requirements for semi-skilled labour, particularly in certain areas of culinary preparation. The expert group on future skills needs documented the shortage of suitably qualified chefs in Ireland and the wider economy. The group projected that the hospitality sector will require approximately 13,000 extra chefs by 2020. This skills shortage should be addressed through a greater focus on apprenticeships and other forms of work-based learning.

With regard to the development of culinary apprenticeships, although the IOTs currently train in excess of 1,300 chefs annually, their output is quickly absorbed across many diverse areas of hospitality and catering.

To address the significant shortfall, the Irish Hotels Federation has been working closely with Fáilte Ireland, SOLAS and industry partners to devise a commis chef apprenticeship programme that will provide an alternative training mechanism for trainees to develop and progress their culinary skills. The programme has been designed to meet the skill needs of employers, while delivering sustainable careers and high-quality training experiences for apprentices. This development is supported by the hospitality industry consortium, a steering group formed by the IHF that consists of representatives from various hospitality and catering bodies, including the Irish Hotels Federation, the Restaurants Association of Ireland, the Irish Hospitality Institute, Euro-toques Ireland, the Catering Management Association of Ireland, training providers such as the education and training boards and institutes of technology, as well as Fáilte Ireland and SOLAS. The consortium has specifically sought and considered the views of learners and, accordingly, consulted existing learners in the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology and the Limerick and Clare Education and Training Board. The IHF has also engaged with SIPTU which has expressed support for the apprenticeship and earn-and-learn model of training. This dedicated culinary apprenticeship programme will deliver a clear route for apprentice commis chefs to obtain a recognised trade qualification.

We aim to have the apprenticeship programme ready to commence later this year. On successful completion of the programme after two years, apprentices will qualify as commis chefs certified at level 6 of the national framework of qualifications. Those who wish to continue studies will be eligible to progress to the chef de partie apprenticeship programme at level 7. This will provide for a seamless progression for graduates from commis chef level to higher level qualifications. On successful completion, graduates will be eligible to progress to further training at levels 8 and 9.

The IHF has also been working in partnership with SOLAS and the ETBs to develop a national framework of career traineeship programmes that will lead to recognised qualifications at levels 4 to 6. A total of five trainee programmes in the hospitality sector have been piloted by the education and training boards and SOLAS. The pilot programmes have been supported by an advisory group that includes the federation and Fáilte Ireland. To date, the programmes have had 45 attendees, of whom 82% were employed after completion. Of these, 21 trainees were employed in the host company, ten were employed in other hotels, while six trainees were employed in another sector.

We have a commitment to training and education. The IHF is a strong advocate in support of developing national skills programmes that deliver high-quality training and education experiences for employees in the tourism and hospitality industry, while meeting the skill needs of employers. We are committed to continuing to play an active role in developing apprenticeship and traineeship schemes that support the transition of young people from education to employment to enable them to take full advantage of the career opportunities in the industry. We call for a detailed review of the training and education requirements of the tourism and hospitality sector to be carried out with a view to agreeing a comprehensive long-term plan of action to tackle the current deficiencies and provide greater clarity on how future requirements will be met. We recommend that a dedicated national programme be put in place for hospitality training and education to be overseen by a tourism and hospitality training directorate set up within SOLAS. This would involve greater collaboration with the industry and better use of existing resources from the ETBs, VECs and IOTs.

I again thank the Chairman for giving us the opportunity to participate in this review by the committee of the role of apprenticeships and skill schemes. We will endeavour to answer questions committee members may raise.