Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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I welcome Mr. Pat Delaney, the chairman designate of An tSeirbhís Oideachais Leanúnaigh agus Scileanna, SOLAS, the new State training agency.

I advise him that, by virtue of section 17(2)(l) of the Defamation Act 2009, witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of their evidence to this committee. If they are directed by the committee to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and they continue to so do, they are entitled thereafter only to qualified privilege in respect of their evidence. Witnesses are directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given. They are asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise or make charges against any person or persons or entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable. I also advise Mr. Delaney that the opening statement he has submitted to the committee will be published on the committee website following this meeting. Members are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses or any official by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.

SOLAS will be responsible for the integration, co-ordination and funding of further education and training. This is set out in the policy brief circulated to members. The appointment of the chairman of SOLAS is subject to consideration by the committee. I invite Mr. Delaney to make his presentation.

Mr. Pat Delaney:

I worked for 32 years for the Irish Business and Employers Confederation, IBEC, most recently as its director of business sectors. Prior to that I was the director of the Small Firms Association for eight years. I have held a number of representational roles on behalf of IBEC and the SFA, most recently on the National Competitiveness Council and prior to that on the Pensions Board and as a representative of Irish business both nationally and internationally. This role of chairman is an exciting prospect because training and education are central to any growth strategy and that is recognised throughout Europe. The rationale is that investment in training should result in an improvement in skills, which should result in higher output. Higher output makes one more competitive. The more competitive one is, the more one sells, and the more one sells, the more national income increases. However, what is more important than that is the impact education and training has on individuals and their self-esteem, the communities they live in, the companies they work for and the personal growth that comes from investment. My hope is that our new organisation, SOLAS, will be able to provide to all its stakeholders - the Government, business and individuals - the type of experience and training that will lead to positive outcomes for everybody and that we will be able to reach a significant improvement in our measurement and evaluation of inputs and outputs. Hopefully, SOLAS will become an organisation which will be a partner of first choice for all of its stakeholders and we will have a recognised organisation that delivers strong analysis to inform the decision-making process on the policies that have to be pursued to make all of this work.

I am happy to present myself to the committee. I hope that in the coming months when we have a statement of strategy from SOLAS both for further education and the operational strategy, we will have an opportunity to present these to the committee. We have not yet had a board meeting, nor have I had an opportunity to talk at length to the executive within the organisation. Members can understand, therefore, that I may not be able to answer all of their questions, but I am certainly happy to answer any questions they have regarding my suitability for this post.

Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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I thank Mr. Delaney. I will use the usual running order for questions, beginning with spokespersons. I ask members to keep their contributions to a maximum of three minutes as agreed.

Averil Power (Fianna Fail)
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I congratulate Mr. Delaney on his appointment to the role. I appreciate he has only just taken it up and, therefore, I do not want to ask too many detailed questions about his priorities. What is his overall vision for the role? What are his priorities? We have had several debates at this committee and in both Houses about the future landscape for further education and training, community education and so on. Some of us are concerned that this is a large landscape and that one sector should not dominate the others. For example, community education is important as well as further education and training and a balance needs to be struck between job-related training and personal development. Will Mr. Delaney comment on how he sees those coming together?

Aodhán Ó Ríordáin (Dublin North Central, Labour)
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I welcome Mr. Delaney to the meeting. SOLAS is charged under the recently enacted legislation with the responsibility of rolling out a national literacy strategy. I mention this because the committee has had a discussion about the dynamics of adult learning and adult literacy in Ireland. That was reinforced by the results published yesterday by the Programme for International Assessment of Adult Competencies, PIAAC, which indicated that 17.9% of Irish adults aged between 16 and 65 have a basic reading problem - that is, they are at or below point 1 on a 5-point scale of literacy proficiency. SOLAS's predecessor, FÁS, did not even have an adult literacy policy.

There is now a commitment to rectify that stitched into the legislation. I would like a full and detailed response on what Mr. Delaney envisages in this regard. All members feel strongly about the empowerment of those from 16 to 65 who may have been let down by the system or for whom it did not work. It should be part of the authority's remit to dig deep to discover the reasons behind that and find a strategy that can overcome the problem so we can improve the statistics. I congratulate Mr. Pat Delaney on his new position and look forward to working with him.

Mr. Pat Delaney:

With regard to the overall vision, the new organisation may have, in the first instance, a job to do to walk away from its history. It is a matter of ensuring that the new organisation, at both board and operational levels, has unity of purpose and will ensure parity of esteem in all the areas that will be affected by the decisions it makes throughout the community.

There ought to be a very strong focus on how we interact with labour market interventions, prepare people for work, encourage employers in getting back to business, and ensure all stakeholders in the system are properly recognised and supported in whatever they want to achieve.

With regard to literacy, there ought to be recognition in every aspect of public policy, training and education that the measurement and evaluation of inputs are very important if we are to target the problem at the critical age. We have noted a trend for many years in international markets. In the 1980s and 1990s, companies were saying they needed to capture people who could speak languages because, although English may have been the primary language in the international sphere, companies trading internationally needed more people who could speak foreign languages. We addressed that through degrees in languages but, realistically, we should have been considering a stronger focus on languages at primary or second level.

Literacy is key and we should not wait until adult illiteracy becomes a problem. Child literacy is an issue and it needs to be measured at a very early stage. My organisation, through the breadth of the stakeholders that are and will be involved from workplace level to community level, will focus on the issue in its strategy. It will have an oversight and strategic role. It will not be the deliverer of the training. In that regard, the teachers, tutors and trainers will need to be properly qualified to carry out training, be it through ICT or otherwise. We must invest in the training. In the coming years, we will be able to see the results of the strategy we are pursuing. I strongly believe the strategy SOLAS will pursue will have a positive effect overall.

SOLAS will have to interact to a greater extent with the business community. Jobs are important for both individuals and the country. Employees need to be on a continuous training curve. I do not necessarily believe there is a difference between training and education. If a person's capacity to learn is being fostered by way of growth in his day-to-day job, it will lead him to want to learn more and, therefore, get back into the education system. The bigger problem that we have is leakage from the education system of young people. We must ask why people are not proceeding to third level, and second level in some cases. We must examine intergenerational literacy problems in some families and determine how to cope with that.

There are some very interesting programmes in the United Kingdom on intergenerational illiteracy, one of which is called Dads and Lads. I do not know whether the Deputy is familiar with that. It has a really strong impact in that it captures both generations together in trying to deal with the problem.

Any comments I make or views I give today are not those of the board of SOLAS. I will be very happy to return to address the committee when SOLAS has its statement of strategy, and then we will be able to give a more detailed outline of our intentions regarding all the issues members may wish to raise.

Ray Butler (Meath West, Fine Gael)
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I congratulate Mr. Delaney on his appointment. He spoke about being involved in small business and other matters. Does he regard taking over SOLAS as involving his interacting with businesses and, perhaps, the social protection offices? In my area, the main social protection office is in Navan, and we are based in Trim. Social protection officers elsewhere are not interacting and there is a lack of information. We have to meet the client and basically push him on. If SOLAS does not interact with the people in question, we are in trouble straightaway. I would like to hear Mr. Delaney's view on SOLAS and the way forward. I would like to see him promoting SOLAS and meeting the affected people. It is a question of giving people information to get them into the jobs market.

Mr. Pat Delaney:

I shall do exactly as suggested in so far as my being chairman allows me to be a front-of-house person. There is work to be done on the branding of the organisation. A very important initial aspect of that will be ensuring that the brand of SOLAS is such that it will be seen as a partner of first choice for all its stakeholders and become the go-to place. Its reputation must be enhanced by the quality of its output, analysis and strategic documents, by what it does on the ground and by the measurement and evaluation that I will certainly ensure will become a very strong part of its work. Every organisation needs to be measured against what it sets out as its targets. It must be determined whether an organisation is meeting its target, the difficulties it has, what it does well, what it does not do so well, whether it needs to improve and the feelings of all its stakeholders. FÁS may not have done so to the extent it might have done. Members may disagree with me on that. My strong desire is that the new organisation will be one of which we can all be proud.

Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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Mr. Delaney used the phrase “walk away from its history”. I presume he was alluding to the bad press FÁS received in recent years. In my community, FÁS courses were much sought after and there was obviously a lot of good work done by the organisation. I am sure others have experienced this. In reality, most of FÁS's work was good work, although there were problems. The VECs have a long history and some of their responsibilities are being dealt with here also. VECs have done a lot to help with gaining access to education, for example. It is very important that Mr. Delaney build on what was good. There is much expertise and many ideas on how to do things better among staff, right down to the clerical officer and tutor. Will an exercise be carried out to talk to people at that level, not just management level?

Mr. Pat Delaney:

Unity of purpose is really important. From the very little dialogue I have had, I believe the many good people on the ground in FÁS who have done tremendous work need to be reminded of how good their work has been and build on it. When I use the phrase “walk away from its history”, I am not saying it is a bad history. In all of these matters, people become scarred and afraid to make decisions.

They become indifferent, in some ways, because they believe everyone is against them.

From the outset my sense of SOLAS is that the organisation will be one of operational and performance excellence. The people working there are very good at what they do. FÁS courses would have been sought after by the public but unfortunately the brand suffered because people thought the courses were not suitable for them or there was a social stigma attached to participating on them. I do not believe that training is bad for anybody. Training can only enhance and improve an individual. The provision of that training, its extent, scope and impact, must be measured against all of the criteria I referred to earlier, which will be laid down by the Oireachtas for the organisation. It is not a case of walking away from a bad history but of walking forward with pride in what has been achieved and improving on that.

Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)
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As there are no further questions, that concludes our consideration of the appointment of Mr. Delaney as chairperson of SOLAS. I thank Mr. Delaney for his presentation and wish him well in his new position. The committee will be following the development of SOLAS with interest and will no doubt be speaking to Mr. Delaney again at some point in the future.