Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)

One part of our motion is a proposal for a substantial programme of investment in skills and retraining, including the use of vacant places in universities and colleges. I specifically want to talk about vacant places, namely, college places that are unfilled after the list of qualified applicants to the CAO for a particular course has been exhausted. I printed out the available place course list for 2008 from the CAO website this evening. As of today there are more than 100 courses advertised as having vacant places by the CAO. There is no transparency as to exactly how many places are available. I tried to get that information from the CAO by telephone recently but it could only tell me the number of courses. When I asked the question of the Minister for Education and Science, Deputy Batt O'Keeffe, he replied that higher education institutions do not routinely provide information to his Department or the HEA on vacant places. Those places are paid for by the taxpayer. The equipment is paid for and the teachers are employed. Those course places remain unfilled and are going to waste. There is no transparency about that and there should be.

Not only are those courses unfilled, but also the subjects they include are degree courses in universities and institutes of technology throughout the country. I understand hundreds of those course places remain unfilled each year in subjects such as information technology, electronic and computer engineering, fishery management, environmental and natural resource management, business courses, law courses, etc. While the Government refers to its objective to create a knowledge-based economy and to do something about job creation to address unemployment, it is allowing this to happen and all that unfulfilled potential to go to waste.

The Labour Party is proposing that the utmost be done by the Government and its agencies to ensure those places are filled, particularly by people who are unemployed. For example, a major sector is construction. Former construction workers would have the opportunity to study for degrees in engineering, etc. They could go on in the future and contribute to the knowledge-based economy and probably earn more in a more secure job than they had in construction. If we do that, we need to ensure they are not to be like school leavers who are supported by their parents at home for four years. We need to ensure people are offered these courses in a flexible way, taking into account that they might have families and other commitments. We need to provide necessary financial supports to ensure they take up those places, which would be worth it in the long run.

There is no promotion of those vacant places. I am only aware of them because I used to work in the area of admissions and registrations in a third level college. Last night, a bricklayer who has been unemployed for a year came to my clinic to ask about an issue related to his trade union. I brought these courses to his attention. He had never heard of them and was interested. As his wife was also unemployed, I told him that if he took up the course he would get to keep his social welfare payments, would almost certainly qualify for a grant and would be able to get a qualification at the end. That type of information is not provided to people. There is no promotion of it and there is no urgency by the Government to do something about the issue.

The agencies, including FÁS, the VECs, the various Departments and in particular the colleges, need to come together on this issue. The colleges need to be made to do something about this matter. The Government is allowing taxpayers' money to be wasted when we could be using these places to educate and upskill people to allow them contribute to the economy. We also have vacant capacity in our second level schools and community colleges. The same issue would also apply to post-leaving certificate courses. We should use those unfilled places to educate our unemployed people.

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