Joe O'Reilly (Cavan-Monaghan, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I congratulate the Minister, Deputy Quinn, on introducing this legislation. He is passionate about the power of education and reforming in his approach to it. Whenever the history of modern Ireland is written, the greatest and most important success story is that of the vocational sector. It has provided the skill set for industrialisation, manufacturing and construction and moved us from being a pastoral society into a modern economy. The VECs were the vehicle for achieving this. They comprised a critical intervention and provided equality of opportunity, particularly in respect of poorer people. They also empowered emigrants. Those who were fortunate enough to have received vocational education prior to emigrating did well abroad. I can cite examples in this regard. They had the wherewithal and capacity to achieve.

VECs embraced academic education and took on a new role. The Minister mentioned that 24% of all mainstream secondary school pupils, some 360,000 in total, can be found in vocational schools. The sector makes a significant input into the management of community schools, accounting for 17% of the pupil population. I am proud of the fact that two of my sons are happily and productively attending an excellent community school in Bailieborough, County Cavan, which has a significant VEC input into its administration. The sector has also been successful in terms of post-leaving certificate, PLC, courses, back to education, community education, Youthreach, VTOS, adult education, adult literacy, Traveller education and prisoner education.

The Minister has just empowered Cavan VEC to grasp the opportunities provided by the new training boards by purchasing Dún Uí Neill barracks and placing it into the VEC's ownership and control. This will be of great assistance to the Cavan Institute, which provides PLCs and sophisticated academic courses across a range of disciplines. It has links with Dundalk IT and Sligo IT and is avant garde, with one of the largest student populations in the country.

I am proud to have been a member of Cavan VEC for several years. The barracks will provide an opportunity for the Cavan Institute to embrace a training role. In this context, I congratulate my colleague, Councillor Madeleine Argue, chairperson of Cavan VEC, its members and the CEO, Mr. Colm McEvoy, on their tenacity in advancing the project and putting us in a position to be able to embrace the legislation and operate it properly.

The Bill's significant output will be the new training dimension. The VECs will take over the role of FÁS, its training centres, etc., albeit under SOLAS, the umbrella national agency. The forthcoming legislation on that is imminent. This is the critical new role that the VECs will assume. I am excited on behalf of the VECs, given the potential.

We need quality training. Issues arose in this regard under the previous regime. Training must respond to the aptitudes and needs of its recipients. This might seem obvious, but it has not always been achieved. We need proper aptitude testing, one-to-one interviewing, analysis, etc.

I agree with Deputy Browne that we must respond to environmental conditions. The challenge of green energy should be embraced. Cavan has significant primary producers of bacon and pork, intensive dairy farming, successful co-operatives and beef farming. The potential for training in the agrifood sector to provide skilled personnel for processing, etc., is considerable and needs to be embraced, particularly in terms of value added products and so forth. Training must respond to the needs of the modern economy and of those being trained. I am confident that this will be the case. It is a good opportunity for the VECs and we look forward to embracing it. Cavan VEC is in a strategic position to do so, thanks to the recent initiative by the Ministers, Deputies Quinn and Shatter.

The recent initiatives by the Department of Social Protection and specifically the Minister, Deputy Burton, in interfacing immediately with people who lose their jobs, assessing their needs, etc., are excellent and need to be linked with the VECs' training role. Rigidities should not prevent such dovetailing. People should move into good training immediately. Even if that training incurs a cost, the output will be considerable.

I am satisfied with the proposed composition of the VECs, in that there will be ten local authority members, two staff representatives, two parent representatives and four community representatives. The business and agrifood sectors should be reflected in the composition. Will the Minister of State, Deputy Sherlock, comment on how the four community representatives will be selected? I welcome the legislation's requirement that business be consulted on the drafting of strategic plans.

It is important that VECs share services. I was a doubting Thomas as regards moving away from the county structure. I have never had a problem with shared services, rationalisations, economies of scale, etc., but the county structure has worked well. A way to preserve it within the system should be considered. It should not be lost, as the dynamic works.

My VEC has used IT effectively in terms of conferencing between schools and the central office and providing payroll facilities to other VECs. The imaginative use of IT and shared services is necessary.

There will be a great challenge for vocational education committees, VECs, in the primary education area. There must be a consensual process that can be negotiated and worked through with the church, as the role of the church in education to date cannot be minimised or taken for granted. As a result of demographics within the churches, there will inevitably be a big role for the VECs in school administration at primary level. In my constituency there is an interesting model, with a campus in Monaghan incorporating a primary, secondary and post-leaving certificate school. The VECs will have an exciting role in the primary sector.

There was a reference by the Minister to having the summer works scheme administered by the youth education and training boards, which is good. The planning of new schools is important, as we built some shockingly big estates. That is a great indictment of the work of the last Administration and what happened in the past. We did not build schools because there was no requirement on developers to put in infrastructure for schools in new estates.

I appreciate the Acting Chairman's indulgence as I was slightly late in starting to speak. Although there is nothing inherently wrong with it, it has become fashionable for every speaker to mention a need in their own area. I would like the Minister's commitment to a new second level school for Kingscourt in County Cavan to be actualised as soon as possible. There are facilities and if the school could get a roll number fairly quickly, it could progress. This is an exciting day for education in this country and I am particularly excited about the new training dimension, where the action will be. That is where we must come up to the plate.

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