Mr. Gerard Smith:

First, to support us, I encourage a tour for committee members to come and understand the centre. I have probably not represented the centre in my words or my opening statement as well as could be represented through members coming. We met earlier this year and we are currently revisiting it. That is where the strategy for funding came from. We are part of the ETB and there are robust strategies for procurement, finance and people. They are important, long established and well set up. We have had these conversations. Our goal is to be compliant, but it is not just to be compliant.

We have developed driving strategies, as we call them. I am taking this from my background. It is a marketing strategy, a product strategy and an operational strategy. The marketing strategy is to ask what problem we are trying to solve. That drives us to have that industry voice. That has driven an agenda this year to try to get industry in and to support agencies to understand that the centre is there and what it is capable of. I have said that a number of times today but I think that is what will keep us on the right track. The product is whatever the training outlet that we need is and the operation is to ensure that the place is run efficiently, that it is safe and that we maximise the capacity of learners through it. All of this is for industry, including industry's challenges in attracting and retaining skill.

The Cathaoirleach mentioned engagement. People talk about engagement in terms of money. I know the basic hierarchy of needs must be met, with secure things such as money, but then it starts moving up into people engagement and retention. I was fortunate enough to work for a business that invested heavily in its people and was able to retain them by ensuring that people were developed. We mentioned lifelong learning earlier. It is that and it is also about upskilling, either through apprenticeships, microcredentials or skills to advance. It is about continually investing in people to retain them. We get challenged in the centre about technology taking jobs away. It is not taking jobs away. There are robotic welders in our centre that, working with the Department of Social Protection and other aspects of the ETB, have helped the long-term unemployed. They have left our place being able to weld. We advanced that learning curve by putting the AR-VR headsets on them, and then they went through traditional welding and robotic welding. They have all been snapped up, and we are running that again. One might say it is an underrepresented group but there are a variety of people in that group. They have left with a skill for life. Rather than that welding cell having a team leader looking after five individual welders, that leader can look after five individual welding machines or robots. You still need the core trade of being able to weld but that is how technology has enabled that to be better and more productive, from a quality, output and safety perspective.

How could the committee support it? It is about understanding that and ensuring that other agencies such as Enterprise Ireland and IDA Ireland understand it, and it is on us to push that as well. It is like everything in that when you understand and appreciate it, then you can see value in it. My view is that the centre needs to be seen more as a Department of enterprise support rather than as a Department of education support. I think there is a subtle difference in that. It tunes the mind slightly differently about what problem you are trying to solve.