Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

First, I want to acknowledge ICTU, Patricia King and the work that they have been doing for a long number of years on the just transition and I contributed as Minister to a number of those debates because the objective was to open up that discussion. On the issue of procurement and of putting a plan in place, whether it is a Spanish template, a German template, a Swedish template, no matter where the model comes from the reality is that if a plan is put in place one can dismiss some of the EU rules on procurement because one is specifically talking about addressing an issue of specific employees. What is key here is not the amount of money. There is a lot of focus on that. The key issue here is putting the plan in place and could the witnesses confirm that is the priority and should be the priority?

We have European Investment Bank funding and the EU coal regions in transition. There are mechanisms there to source funding and to target that funding to employees, but the big void that we have at the moment is a strategic plan to transition from where we are today. We are not going to have seasonal work next spring for the seasonal staff. We are not going to have permanent work for staff at the end of next year and we need to focus on that. I dismiss the comment from my colleague earlier, Deputy Ryan, that Athlone Institute of Technology is not fit for purpose. I fully reject that. I think Athlone IT working with Solas and the ETBs can play an important role here and are willing to do that. I have a specific question for Mr. Noone. I asked the man sitting in his chair this day last week about the skills register. The ETB representative at the meeting last week said they were only now establishing a skills register and that they could not get access to employees before that. Can Mr. Noone explain to me why we do not have a skills register, because I had an employer yesterday who was looking for access to that very data because they have an opportunity to reskill some of those staff and provide them with jobs in the midlands? Finally, if Mr. Noone could comment on the accusation that has been made that some staff who want to get out because of their age are now being blocked from getting out and are being blocked from accessing a redundancy package. The reality is there is no future in peat harvesting. There will be work for some staff in rehabilitation and rewetting of the bogs, but surely we should be facilitating any individual who wants to get out and providing them with the opportunities to reskill and maybe start a new business if they so wish.