Brendan Smith (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)

Deputy Crowe referred earlier to deficiencies in language teaching. I spoke privately with the Minister while we were campaigning in the recent referendum about my shock at the number of people from outside this jurisdiction who were working in a certain enterprise because of a lack of people with specific skills here. At a recent party meeting a young person who is pursuing postdoctoral studies expressed concern about the drop in the number of Irish graduates undertaking postgraduate courses and, specifically, PhD courses in the sciences. She indicated that there was a visible decrease in the number of new Irish PhD students in postgraduate labs and pointed out that most people who achieve that level of education are guaranteed employment. She was concerned that these opportunities are being taken up by non-Irish postgraduate students. From her experience as a young person, she feared those who came to college a few years after her would not get the same opportunities to avail of the grant system, with fees paid and adequate maintenance. We know the ICT sector needs more graduates and the same could be said of the pharmaceutical sector, where there has been a move to bio-pharmaceuticals. There are challenges and job opportunities and we want to ensure our people with the requisite skills and ability have the opportunity to pursue those studies, gain useful employment and create employment for others.

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