Seán Haughey (Dublin North Central, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate and will focus my remarks on the vital issue of lifelong learning. As Minister of State with responsibility for lifelong learning, I fully recognise the importance of education and training in terms of the positive impact it has on individuals and on the economic prospects of an entire country. In Ireland today, our ability to compete with international competitors is dependent on the skills and competencies of our workforce. We are internationally considered to have a workforce that is flexible, innovative, committed and highly skilled. We would all agree that these strengths of our workforce have been the bedrock of our remarkable economic transformation.

Events over the past few weeks, in particular the current financial turmoil which is gripping the entire world economy, demonstrate not only the pace of change but also the sheer scale of globalisation in the 21st century. The quality and intensity of global competition is increasing all the time. Our competitors will continue to work hard to make their business climates and infrastructures more attractive to global investors and many will rely on labour cost advantages. The developed world is beginning to wake up to the former sleepy economic giants of China, India and Brazil in terms of global competitiveness and investment.

Ireland is a small and open economy and we are feeling the affects of the present economic turmoil. However, we remain an attractive location for high-end, skill-intensive operations. If we are to continue to prosper in these increasingly challenging times, it is pivotal that we take prudent action now in key areas that will enable us to safeguard our future economic and social development.

The skills and competencies level of our labour force is one such area. The Government firmly believes that our future success can only be guaranteed by continuing our policy of investing in our education and training systems. Through our primary, secondary and third level education system, combined with massive Government investment in vocational education and training, Ireland is well placed to take her place on the world stage as a star performer in the global knowledge economy.

We must continue to produce highly-educated and skilled individuals. We must ensure that the country has a labour force with the ability to not only meet the needs of enterprises but also, more importantly, to allow Ireland to quickly respond to emerging opportunities that will present themselves. In short, Ireland must create and develop competitive advantage in terms of the skills and qualifications of our labour force. This will be key to maintaining our success and will allow us to continue to compete in the increasingly competitive global marketplace.

Lifelong learning will, therefore, play a key role in enabling Ireland to remain competitive in the future. Participation by adults in education and training is still significantly underdeveloped here compared with other economies. We must, therefore, encourage greater participation in lifelong learning by facilitating and motivating people to increase their skill levels and qualifications. Key to achieving this goal is our national skills strategy.

The national skills strategy was published in March 2007 and was completed by the expert group on future skills needs in response to the Government's request for the group to undertake a comprehensive analysis of Ireland's labour market and skills needs to 2020. The results of the analysis contain an ambitious vision for the skills profile in Ireland in 2020. It shows that if Ireland is to progress ahead of our competitors, we need to increase our focus on skills development at a number of levels.

We need to upskill by at least one level on the national framework of qualifications, an additional 500,000 people by 2020. The strategy clearly shows that the majority of these people, in excess of 330,000, are currently considered to be low skilled and, therefore, the implementation of the vision needs to have a special focus on the low skilled. The national skills strategy has helped us to target specific skills and sectors that will become increasingly important in the next few years. It has allowed us to identify and address specific gaps in our skills base and will help us to build an education and training system that will allow us to quickly adapt and respond to the challenging global business environment.

The achievement of the ambitious targets contained in the national skills strategy requires a co-ordinated implementation process. As Minister with responsibility for lifelong learning, I have responsibility for overseeing this entire process and bringing together the relevant Departments to ensure a co-ordinated response. In this regard, I chair the interdepartmental committee for the implementation of the national skills strategy. This committee, which consists of senior officials from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, the Department of Education and Science and the Department of Finance, is responsible for preparing an implementation plan.

It is my intention that this plan will examine the existing provision of education and training to ensure a co-ordinated and efficient provision between the education and training sectors. The implementation plan will also determine the key areas and initiatives that will require additional focus in order to achieve the objectives of the national skills strategy. I intend that this implementation plan will be completed by early next year.

While work is progressing on developing the implementation plan for the national skills strategy, the Government has already taken action to assist those who have been affected by the significant downturn in activity in the construction sector. FÁS has been instructed, as the national training and employment authority, to place particular focus on providing support and retraining opportunities to construction workers and apprentices who have been made redundant as a result of the downturn in the construction sector. This focus is in addition to the normal employment services support FÁS provides to people who have been made redundant.

Specifically, FÁS has established a training fund that will allow it respond in a prompt manner by providing training and retraining opportunities to redundant construction workers to enable them gain alternative employment. FÁS currently provides upskilling opportunities in emerging areas within the construction sector, including the installation of renewable energy technologies, to redundant construction workers. The Government is committed to assisting in whatever way possible construction workers who have been made redundant.

As I also have responsibility for the programmes delivered under the auspices of the Department of Education and Science, I want to take this opportunity to mention the vocational training opportunities scheme, VTOS. This scheme is a second chance education and training programme, which provides courses of up to two years' duration for unemployed people. The scheme is delivered locally by the VECs across 99 centres nationwide and provides education and training to some 5,000 participants. It has proved to be very successful, with VTOS progression statistics for 2007 showing, where the course was of two years' duration, over 72% of participants who completed the programme in that year had progressed to either employment or further education and training. The scheme has proved to be a great success in opening up learning and progression opportunities for people who have been marginalised by unemployment.

Our future competitiveness and success as an economy and society lies within our hands. Targeting our investment in education and training to achieve the objectives of the national skills strategy will provide Ireland with competitive advantage in the key area of skills. Ireland's workforce will continue to be the basis of our success. I have the utmost confidence in the ability of our workforce to successfully compete with the best in the world. The Government for its part is committed to investing in education and training and the continued promotion of lifelong learning. However, in order for us to guarantee our future success, we all, including the Government, the social partners, our education and training providers and each and every one of us, must truly embrace the benefits of lifelong learning by actively participating in it when the opportunity arises.

The interdepartmental committee, consisting of representatives of the three Departments I already mentioned, has met on two occasions. We are finalising an implementation plan which it is hoped to publish early in the new year. This will set out a vision for the implementation of the national skills strategy and will oblige all involved in lifelong learning to play their role, the institutes of technology, third level colleges, the VECs, the further education sector, FÁS, Skillnet and all those involved in training. All these partners, the workforce, learners and society in general will come together behind the implementation plan and set about upskilling the workforce and achieving the ambitious targets set out in the national skills strategy by 2020.

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