Ms Úna Halligan:

I thank the Chairman and members for this opportunity to speak on behalf of the expert group on future skills needs. I am Úna Halligan and I am chair of the group. With me is Ms Marie Bourke from Forfás, who is head of the secretariat to the expert group. Forfás manages the group's work, keeps its members in line and has responsibility for research analysis and secretarial support. The expert group was established in 1997 and it reports to the Ministers for Education and Skills and Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation. Its role is to advise Government on current and future skills needs within the economy and on the possible impact of labour market issues on enterprise and employment growth in Ireland.

Mr. O'Connor referred to 1997, the year in which our group was founded, being right in the middle of the boom time. The reason the group was established was because there was a genuine skills shortage in Ireland at that stage and this was having an effect on a number of multinational companies. I was employed by Hewlett-Packard in 1997 and I am aware that the companies to which I refer were all fighting for the same people and seeking individuals with the same skills. We were caught on the back foot at that point and what is now IDA Ireland informed us that there was a need to create and retain certain types of jobs here. It was necessary to adopt something of a create-and-build-and-they-will-come approach and this is what happened.

Members might ask why the expert group remains in existence in 2012. When I became chair of the group a couple of years ago, we engaged in a careful consideration of the position and identified the fact that we still have a skills shortage. We have very many well-educated people in this country but the question arises as to whether their qualifications and experience actually meet the needs which currently exist in the area of enterprise. That is what our work is about. I will now give the committee a flavour of what we do and I will be happy to take any questions members may wish pose.

A well-educated workforce remains one of Ireland's fundamental strengths. Our economic recovery is highly dependent on a skilled labour force. Educational attainment is highly linked to current prospects in the labour market and has a significant impact in the context of the likelihood of people becoming either employed or unemployed. The need to upskill and engage in conversion programmes for reskilling is vital because almost all occupations are becoming more knowledge-based. This is resulting in a need for an increasing breadth of knowledge, rising technical and regulatory requirements and continual learning.

The Government's Action Plan for Jobs 2012 targets the creation of 100,000 jobs during the period to 2016. In that context, IDA Ireland has programmes in place to help realise job growth in financial services, life sciences, information and communications technology or ICT, content and business services and the emerging clean tech area. Enterprise Ireland is targeting opportunities in areas such as agrifood, life sciences, software, financial-business services, telecommunications, Internet, media and entertainment, clean tech and engineering. The expert group works closely with IDA Ireland, Enterprise Ireland and others in order to address the skills requirements of these sectors of future employment growth potential and ensure we will have the skills necessary to take advantage of any opportunities that arise.

The area in respect of which the expert group can add a great deal of value to the committee's deliberations on unemployment and youth unemployment is through the research and analysis it has carried out in conjunction with those involved in enterprise in sectors and occupations where future job opportunities are expected to arise through replacement - which is an interesting concept - and expansion demand. The group has identified the skills that will be required to fill some of these jobs and has advised the education and training system with regard to aligning its programmes to ensure that graduates, trainees and those engaged in conversion and upskilling programmes will be best equipped to fill these jobs. In conjunction with IDA Ireland in particular we have identified growth areas and sectors in which opportunities exist. We are not saying that young people should not study the classics or whatever at college. We are merely informing them that if they want jobs, they may not necessarily be able to obtain them via their studies in such areas. We are trying to impart that information as we complete various aspects of our research.

There is no easy solution to our problems and a multifaceted approach will be required. In that regard, we are of the view that a cross-departmental approach will be of major assistance. It is our view, therefore, that the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation should ensure that the environment is supportive for job creation; that the Department of Education and Skills should ensure that individuals are appropriately educated and trained to be able to avail of those job opportunities; and that the Department of Social Protection should ensure that the unemployed are supported appropriately while out of work and kept close to the labour market through targeted activation designed to meet individual needs. We are hoping that by means of the Pathways to Work scheme people will be informed of both the programmes they should take and where job opportunities exist. This will ensure that they will not become totally misaligned with the world of work.

In our submission we have elaborated on measures that should be taken by Government in order to tackle unemployment and youth unemployment, including measuring performance through outcomes and value for money in addition to outputs and that said outcomes should focus on progression to employment-self-employment and progression to further or higher education or training; ensuring relevance to labour market and skills needs - this is the fundamental to what we are doing; ensuring that new and revised education and training courses continue to take on board the work of the expert group; and, maintaining emphasis on science, technology, engineering and mathematics, STEM, skills in light of the continuing strong demand for graduates who possess ICT, engineering, math, science and financial skills. In addition, the strong dependence on exports for economic recovery calls for an increased emphasis on multilingual and international sales skills. Our recent report on international trade shows that Ireland has a major issue in respect of the latter.

In our submission we also highlight the fact that the quality and level of mathematical knowledge outcomes for all ranks of national mathematical proficiency must improve; and that structured internships which provide work experience opportunities within enterprise are hugely valuable in improving the employability of students and jobseekers and that these need to be continually increased. Another aspect we highlight is the need to ensure the relevance of intervention to the individual. In that regard, all courses should demonstrate the progression pathway for the learner and underline how the skills and competencies relating to a programme enhance either specific occupational employment potential or employability skills - generic and soft - that are important for enhancing the mobility of the learner within and across sectors. Programmes should be suitable for the aptitudes of the learner and his or her level of educational attainment. The recognition of prior learning also has a role to play in determining appropriate learning requirements for those who are unemployed.

The system must be characterised by flexibility. That is vital, given that we are in completely uncharted territory and will require scope to work out what does and does not work. Where successful interventions are developed, the funding system should have the flexibility to expand on good practice, where appropriate, in addition to curtailing programmes where they are found to be ineffective. The activation system must reward and prioritise successful outcomes. In addition, wider adoption of competitive funding streams should be considered where evaluations have found positive outcomes.

There has been significant progress on several aspects of the action plan. For example, we have identified areas in the information and communications technology sector in which there are significant skills shortages and demands. A range of skills recruitment challenges has emerged for high-level ICT skills, both in companies within the sector and in businesses across the economy. The Action Plan to Address ICT Skills Needs, published last January, outlines key actions in this area. They include upskilling and conversion courses to increase the supply of ICT skills in the period 2012 to 2014 and efforts to double the number of level 8 ICT graduates by 2018. The expert group recommends a further iteration in 2013 of the ICT level 8 conversion programme, to be designed and rolled out in close collaboration with industry.

The Springboard higher education labour market initiative is an important programme, in which I had a role in terms of accreditation and decision making in respect of some of its iterations. The expert group's research for the Springboard initiative identified specific enterprise skills demands around which training programmes could be designed for the 2010 and 2011 calls. This has helped to ensure provision is highly relevant to enterprise skills needs and should, therefore, have optimal labour market outcomes for participants. Improvements have been made to each iteration of the Springboard initiative. Evaluation of the programme will be important in order to ensure progression outcomes to employment are being achieved for the participants. Some of that evaluation has already been done, with very positive outcomes to date.

We are also concerned with offering guidance to the further education and training sector on future skills needs. Helping the further education system to respond more effectively to the current and future skills needs of employers is key to equipping graduates for employment. Earlier this year Forfás provided guidelines for the alignment of further education programmes in the vocational education committees with the skills needs of enterprise. The guidelines emphasised the need to work more closely with local enterprises and public employment services in the development of courses, enhance workplace learning, develop core and generic skills as part of individuals' plans for progression to particular areas of employment, and expand the offering of accredited options within basic education, that is, at levels 1 to 3. These guidelines were circulated to all VECs by the Department of Education and Skills.

Continuous improvement is required to align mainstream higher education programmes with the skills needed by enterprise. Objectives in this regard include a focus on learning outcomes which develop the skills of the individual and are valuable to enterprise, and greater linkages between disciplines such as software and foreign languages, business and science, or engineering and sales. Another key aspect of this initiative is an emphasis on structured graduate placements and enhanced teaching knowledge and experience. We must, for instance, have language lecturers with knowledge of business and a much greater mobility of lecturers to and from industry. We envisage a situation where industry would send somebody into the third level sector with a knowledge of cutting-edge technology, with the benefits in terms of student learnings ultimately going back into business and the community.

A review of undergraduates by discipline highlights the falling numbers qualifying in science, mathematics and computing in the past decade. While these disciplines accounted for 20% of all higher education graduates in 2001, this had fallen to 11% by 2010. With Ireland's economic recovery strongly dependent on export-led growth in sectors such as pharmaceuticals, medical devices, software and engineering, these falling numbers have given cause for concern. As such, the increase in applications for science and computing courses this year is a welcome step in the right direction.

Recruitment difficulties are anticipated in sourcing international sales staff and people with foreign language proficiency in software and engineering. Expanding into new markets requires a ramping up of skills and experience levels. Absolutely key is the ability to sell effectively and for staff right across functional areas of companies to be able to communicate and understand those markets. All of the 42 firms surveyed in the course of the expert group's work on skills for international trade expect employment in their companies to increase by 15% to 20% in the next three years. We identified 2,200 potential job opportunities arising within exporters which could be filled through tailored skills conversion courses, developed in partnership with industry. Specifically, we are recommending conversion programmes to commence in 2013 to address these future employment opportunities. These include: 800 places in customer sales and services with foreign languages at national framework of qualifications, NFQ, levels 6 and 7; 250 places for sales professionals with foreign languages at NFQ levels 7 and 8; 250 places for engineers - mechanical, automation and design - at NFQ level 8 plus; 100 places in international project management at NFQ levels 7 and 8; and 800 places for computing software professionals at NFQ level 8.

There is high recognition in exporting companies of the need to improve employees' foreign language capability in order to boost success in international markets. An improved supply domestically of foreign languages capability, including in German, French, Spanish and Italian, as well as Mandarin Chinese and Japanese, would be of major help to enterprises in achieving their export potential. Individuals who acquire these language skills will inevitably improve their employment prospects. Training in this area should include contextual language learning for specific purposes. For example, managers might need to learn German to communicate with clients and employees, engineers might need to acquire sales skills with German, French or another language and so on. Clearly, all international marketing and sales professionals require foreign language skills.

The expert group recommends the development of a foreign language education policy with a five to ten-year horizon vision across the continuum of primary, secondary and third level education. In order to meet the language proficiency needs of enterprise, we must boost the uptake of modern foreign languages at third level and align assessment of foreign language proficiency with the six reference levels, from basic to proficient, set out under the common European framework of reference for languages. In addition, the Government should set placement targets to ensure Erasmus student placements consist primarily of study and work - in non-English - speaking markets.

Our annual vacancy overview outlines the demand for labour based on trends in advertised job vacancies and is a good indicator of the occupations and sectors where replacement and expansion jobs arise. This is a vital indicator for those organisations providing services for the unemployed. In our most recent report, published in February this year, more than 100,000 new vacant posts advertised in 2011 across nine broad occupations were analysed. This analysis showed that of the approximately 8,500 new advertised vacancies per month in 2011, the most prominently featured sectors were ICT, engineering and utilities, accountancy, financial services and insurance, and production, manufacturing and materials. With regard to occupations, vacancies were most frequent for sales and related occupations, science and engineering professionals, business professionals, administrative occupations, science and engineering associate professionals, and corporate managers and directors. All of these vacancies specified foreign language skills. International sales professionals with foreign language proficiency are in particular demand. As such, we recommend an increase in the number of formal international sales courses at third level, compulsory modules on international sales in business courses and the introduction of a degree and postgraduate diploma in international sales with foreign languages.

I apologise to the Chairman for going over time and thank members for their attention.