Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Laois-Offaly, Fine Gael)
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I welcome Mr. Barry O'Brien, government programmes executive at IBM; Mr. Peter Davitt, CEO of FIT Limited; Mr. Paul Sweetman, director at ICT Ireland and the Irish Software Association, IBEC, and FIT board member; Mr. George Ryan, FIT chief operations officer; and Mr. Kieran Sweeney, head of Microsoft Capability, Version 1, and FIT board member.
By virtue of section 17(2)(l) of the Defamation Act, 2009, witnesses are protected by absolute privilege in respect of their evidence to the joint committee. However, if they are directed by it to cease giving evidence on a particular matter and continue to do so, they are entitled thereafter only to qualified privilege in respect of their evidence. They are directed that only evidence connected with the subject matter of these proceedings is to be given and asked to respect the parliamentary practice to the effect that, where possible, they should not criticise or make charges against any person or an entity by name or in such a way as to make him, her or it identifiable. 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 an official, either by name or in such a way as to make him or her identifiable.
I note for the information of members and our guests that I attended a meeting in Rome on Thursday and Friday of last week of the chairpersons of committees specialising in employment, research and innovation as part of the parliamentary dimension of the Italian Presidency. I attended on behalf of the committee and made a contribution on the grand coalition for digital jobs, which was launched by the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Richard Bruton, in March 2013. I noted the pledge of FIT Limited to apply the FIT training and support model to secure employment for 12,000 marginalised jobseekers in Spain, Portugal, Greece and Ireland by 2016.
FIT Ireland is leading a consortium of entities from Greece, Spain, Portugal, Latvia and Lithuania, with the support of Telecentre Europe, in respect of which each country partner will plan, execute and provide an analysis of the unique training for employment pilot scheme.

The pilot provides a complete and tested series of activities which result in an ICT upskilled jobseeker entering the workplace. It received a very warm welcome from many of the members and many were afterwards very keen to hear more about it. I invite Mr. Peter Davitt to make his presentation to the committee.