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.