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.