Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I agree with Deputy Calleary that there are issues of skills shortages. As part of our action plan for jobs, the Minister for Education and Skills rolled out a programme to double output in the ICT sector over the next five years. That will involve initiatives such as Springboard which will provide short-term conversion courses, as well as increasing the longer term outputs from the colleges. There are acute skills shortages in key areas. There are shortages of programmers, for example, in the ICT area. There are also shortages of people with combinations of IT and language skills. There are gaps in those areas and we will be seeking to focus initiatives there. There is scope for improvement in those areas.

We need to focus on job creation activities. When I commented that the Deputy was referring to other areas I was drawing his attention to the very worthwhile things that are happening in other Departments. The development of Irish Water is a significant new infrastructure. We are creating a new public utility that will involve employment in the short term as we rebuild and connect it and make it more efficient in the long term.

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