Mr. Tony Donohoe:

I will take the first question, which was directed to the expert group. We probably need to clarify our terminology, such as skills shortages versus labour shortages. Some of the discussion earlier was very much about labour shortages. Sometimes we run out of people who are prepared to do a particular job. Skills, however, which are the remit of this group, are a much broader area. All the way through the recession, there was a perennial shortage of ICT skills in their broadest sense.

There is an international war for talent. Every country in the world is looking for ICT engineering technologists. We are living in a technological age. It is not confined just to the sector. We are particularly exposed - this relates to the Senator's final question on foreign direct investment, FDI - because all the top ICT companies are located here and they tend to hoover up much of this talent. About a third of these ICT openings are not in the sector. Very few industries do not require ICT skills now. That pace is accelerating. It involves services, particularly financial, but it is across the whole range of industries, which are all looking for ICT staff.

We have not published the report yet but we have done a significant piece of research on future skills demand in ICT for the next few years and this is to underpin the skills action plan. We looked at different scenarios, including low growth, high growth and middle growth scenarios. Even with a middle growth scenario, we were looking at 8.5% per year, which is huge on a cumulative basis.

I will ask Mr. Daly to deal with some of those other sectors but before I do that, I will make the point that during the discussion on apprenticeships, it occurred to me that the way we do policy is on a sector and industry-group basis. Much of the gaps are now in occupations that are spread across sectors. That could be something of an issue with our apprenticeships as well. There are many different occupations and the one that strikes me is sales and marketing. There is not a company which would not take on a good sales and marketing person. We do not structure our calls and our policy analysis in such a way, where it is not just about sectors.