Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I am very committed. I am not an island and I am not the entire Government. It will require the Senator's party, my party and Senator Pauline O'Reilly's party working together to prioritise these issues. I have had great support from the Taoiseach on this. I want to genuinely acknowledge that, but it will require a collective effort from the whole Government. There are a couple of reasons to be hopeful. One, we need to grapple with the National Training Fund surplus. I am not suggesting that it is easy; it is not. If it was easy it would have been done already, but it still needs to be done. For anyone watching these proceedings, the National Training Fund is an account that employers across the country pay into. It has a very large surplus, which will amount to over €1 billion shortly. It is on track to go to over €2 billion in the coming years. That was always being paid into to provide additionality in terms of skills and training. That is one helpful suggestion I make to broader government-----