Tony Gregory (Dublin Central, Independent)

Although the Minister glossed over it in her opening statement, this debate on further education arises from the failure of the Government, specifically in one area of higher education, to act on the recommendations of the McIver report. We probably would not have this debate but for the campaign of the Teachers' Union of Ireland to highlight the neglect of this critical area of further education.

This issue goes back to the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness in 1999 when the social partners, including the Government and the trade unions, gave a clear commitment to review post leaving certificate courses. On foot of that commitment, a steering group was set up in 2000 by the Department to carry out the review. The Department was, supposedly, committed to making progress on the issue. The steering group commissioned independent consultants to produce a report and in April 2003 the McIver report was published. Now, nearly three years later, not a single cent has been spent and not one recommendation has been implemented.

The Government's commitment to one of the priority issues of the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness has been put on the shelf and left there. The main recommendations of the McIver report were the recognition of further education as a sector of education in its own right and not as a misplaced adjunct of second level and that PLCs should be distinct colleges of further education and specially funded and resourced as such. They were to have libraries, study areas, properly equipped IT facilities and staff to maintain them and facilities and resources on a par with institutes of technology and universities.

Instead, the 30,000 students still participate in a system that was set up as a temporary arrangement 20 years ago. The system is overstrained and drastically underresourced. Much of it is in cramped accommodation, it is governed by inappropriate regulations and its teachers carry an excessive teaching load. This is the case despite the fact that the majority of its students are over 18 years of age, with as much as one fifth over 30 years of age. There are more mature students in the PLCs than in all the universities and institutes of education put together.

The McIver report states the sector urgently requires a new management structure to develop the colleges and their study programmes, with the addition of three national agencies to oversee links to industry, computer links between colleges and support services for teachers. These are teachers who teach a huge range of courses designed to meet service industry and community needs.

A separate capital programme is critical for the future of these colleges. However, Ireland is now the only European country with no recognised sector of further education in an economic context, where there is an increasing and critical need to reskill and retrain the less advantaged sections of our young people. The PLC colleges could be perfectly poised to take up this challenge. With the necessary resources, this sector would be a real investment in the future. These colleges are currently the primary providers of second-chance education, but the Government has turned its back on them. Since last Easter, discussions had been ongoing between the teachers' unions, the Department and the Irish Vocational Education Association based on the belief that something substantial would be delivered in last December's budget, but not one cent was provided for the implementation of the McIver recommendations.

In reply to recent parliamentary questions, the Minister of State, Deputy de Valera referred to various other areas for which she has responsibility and asked if she should take money from them for the McIver report. What a cop out. Is that the way strategic planning is undertaken in the Department of Education and Science? Six years for a review of needs and now it does not even budget for it. Ironically, the amount required, as I said a number of weeks ago, as a major first step is €48 million, which is more or less the same amount as this Government squandered on the now discarded and useless electronic voting machines.

Much of this sector provides for the needs of second-chance students, the socially disadvantaged who did not have the opportunity of university but who could now be skilled in post-leaving certificate courses and go on to good jobs or even third level education. Many of these students are themselves parents. The educational benefits for their children and other social benefits could be spin-off results and a real investment in this country's future. Despite this, a Government with enormous financial surpluses and resources fails to meet its responsibility. Is it that the old prejudice against vocational education in the education system has simply not gone away but is alive and well in the way the PLC sector is treated? The only positive answer to this question is to end the lip-service and allocate the necessary resources now. What a fitting way this would be to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the 1916 Proclamation and really cherish all the children of the nation equally.

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