Mr. Paul Kelly:

Yes, discussions are ongoing. There is a tourism and hospitality careers oversight group. We are lucky enough to have that structure at a sectoral level where we engage with the third level colleges, the ETBs and the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science. The Senator is right that it is not about a lack of available courses. We are operating in probably the most competitive workforce environment we have had in our lifetimes. Just this morning, the Economic and Social Research Institute, ESRI, warned about the economy overheating. Every sector is short of skills and the tourism and hospitality sector is no different in this regard. I refer to trying to attract people onto those courses.

Historically, one of the challenges has been that the reputation of the sector as an employer has not been as good as we would have wanted it to be. This has been a factor. Part of that was reality but much of it was also a misperception. Programmes such as our employer excellence programme that Ms Fitzgerald Kane just referred to are set up to try to ensure that, as much as possible across the sector, there are excellent employer practices and rewarding careers and full awareness and perception of this fact. The IHF has been working in this area for many years with its strong employment programmes. Much work is going on to try to attract people into the sector.

We have a transition year programme, to which Ms Fitzgerald Kane also referred, where we had hundreds of students placed last year via the Fáilte Ireland transition year portal. We ask the industry to provide placements and we link in with schools and ask them to make all their transition year students aware of these. This is a great way for people to get summer jobs and for the industry to bring in seasonal staff. More important, it is a great way for people to get a good and positive initial experience of the sector. There is, therefore, lots going on to try to improve the situation over time.

We are in an incredibly competitive work environment. We will need to continue to work on this and be as creative as we can. We are also linking in internationally through the EURES scheme to make people aware of the opportunities. We identified Spain and Italy as two markets with high potential to bring people from to work in Ireland. Of course, we come back to the issue of housing and the availability of accommodation if we are bringing in people from abroad, whether they are coming here on work permits or from the EU without needing such permits. The issue of accommodation is also a challenge. We are doing what we can.