Mr. Tony Donohoe:

I will take some of Deputy Kelleher's questions. I believe that the issue of management training is critical. The Deputy referred to awareness and cost in the context of this two-speed economy, but I would also put time in there. These are three elements. SMEs tend to be particularly time poor. I agree 100% with the Deputy's point about awareness. There is some empirical evidence to support that. I attended the Future Jobs Summit last week. An expert from the OECD compared the calibre of management in Irish business - especially at SME level - with other jurisdictions. Ireland did not perform particularly well. The expert group has been aware of this for a while and for our programme for next year we have decided to look at the issue of management skills. It is a long time since this has been subjected to scrutiny. There was a small firms' council at one stage but it seemed to die in the depths of the recession. I agree 100% with the Deputy's point. There is an Enterprise Ireland initiative to equip regional skills managers with this toolkit of a skills needs analysis. It is very important because sometimes it is the case where SMEs do not know what they do not know. Small firms tend to be focused on where are the opportunities and where are the threats and they do not think of skills conceptually. If skills are part of the solution that is all well and good, but sometimes they need guidance in linking skills to business strategy. This could be an important part of our armoury.

On training for the workforce, over the last two budgets there has been a re-profiling of some of the national training fund to in employment training, which is pretty good, and more money into apprenticeships. This is also an important part of upskilling for the existing workforce. In some instances it is new recruits but is also for people who want to change occupations while in employment. The Deputy mentioned Paul Healy and Skillnet Ireland, which received a significant increase in the budget. There is also the Springboard conversion programme that previously was targeted at labour force activation but is now more of it is profiled towards in-company upskilling. This is a welcome development.

On resources and the pressures of Brexit, I will defer to Mr. Daly.