Dan Boyle (Cork South Central, Green Party)

I am glad to have the opportunity to contribute to the debate, given my experience. I attended an institute of technology at third level. Subsequently, as a local government member, I had the privilege of being a member of City of Cork VEC and chairing the board of management of a further education college, Coláiste Stiofáin Naofa. Even then, prior to my election to the House, I was aware of the frustration regarding proper resourcing and recognition of the sector, which was a current issue. It is even more frustrating and galling that the same issues, particularly those related to proper resourcing, are still a matter of political debate. The recommendations of the McIver report could be implemented at a cost of €48 million. However, the Government has held fast against implementing them and the cost has probably increased to €50 million but that is no excuse for failing to provide the necessary resources.

When I was chairman of the board of management of a progressive, innovative school, I became aware of the wider views of the further education sector. It is sometimes pejoratively known as the second and a half level sector, which undermines the role it plays in society. We do not have the opportunity to discuss the education philosophy being pursued by the Government and it falls down most in this regard. It is locked into an approach to education based purely on economic outcomes, which only pays lip-service to the concept of lifelong learning. If it supported this concept, it would have no difficulty in resourcing different educational sectors appropriately. It was most disappointing that the only reference to higher education in the budget was to fourth level education and the funding of PhDs, doctorates, masters degrees and so on. This underscores the Government's purely economic approach to education. My experience of the further education sector is that not only does it live and breathe the lifelong education approach, it reaches out to sectors of society that education policies of successive Governments have failed to reach.

We must recognise that further education colleges have been born out of the old technical college sector. They have reinvented themselves to represent the communities in which they are sited. They offer opportunities to people to get back into education and to progress to other forms of education. By not recognising properly the role further education colleges play, the Government lets down the people in such communities.

I will conclude with comments on the biggest failure of the Government in terms of economic supports for people availing of further and higher education. Yesterday we had a significant court decision on back to education allowances. I am surprised that despite this issue having been raised twice on the Order of Business, by me yesterday and Deputy O'Sullivan today, the Government has still not indicated how it intends to follow through on that important ruling. If it cannot do the little things, we on this side of the House despair that it will ever tackle the bigger issues such as the McIver report.

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