Tom Hayes (Tipperary South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am very pleased to have an opportunity to speak on the Education and Training Boards Bill 2012. In these challenging times the way we manage education through VECs and other schools needs to change. Yesterday, we discussed the reform of local government and today we are discussing the reform of how VECs are managed. These are examples of the Government facing up to the reality that we need to do things differently and better. I welcome the streamlining of the management of vocational schools as provided for in the Bill. There were proposals to amalgamate the VECs in Tipperary and Waterford, but now it has been confirmed that south and north Tipperary will be amalgamated, which will have a positive effect on the management of schools across the county. Those are very effective institutions which play a great role in educating many people in the county.

I wish to refer to areas in which the VECs have excelled in the past, which is in adult education and education for people who are out of work or want to change their careers. More than 400,000 people are unemployed. Many skilled people from the construction industry now have no work or opportunity. There is a real challenge for the country and the Minister for Education and Skills is prepared to face the challenge to re-educate, retrain and refocus all those people. We all know them and they do not want to be unemployed. They had a good standard of living some years ago but it has been taken from them because the entire industry collapsed. We need to stand up to that challenge and find opportunities for those people because there are opportunities. We could be negative and say nothing is happening and the situation in the country is deteriorating. However, by way of an example to counter that, the ICT sector has 3,000 unfilled jobs. I could see opportunities to retrain all those unemployed people.

There is considerable involvement in the agricultural sector in my county. We have challenges to educate more young farmers. Quotas will disappear in coming years, beef markets are opening up and alternative organic food can be produced. Beyond the farm gate there are great opportunities for employment but we need to upskill people to have them ready to take up those opportunities.

Ireland is becoming more competitive in tourism than we were and there are opportunities for more tourists to visit. However, we need to educate those unemployed people to become guides or get involved in other opportunities in the tourism sector. That is the challenge for the adult education sector. We need to open up in those three areas to educate the unemployed people in the areas of agriculture, tourism and IT in order to take large numbers of people off our dole queues which would in turn lead to a more prosperous Ireland. At the end of the day, the challenge to create jobs in the coming years will be immense. However, we cannot face that challenge without educated people. That is why the Bill is so important. We need to face the challenge and I know the Minister for Education and Skills is up to it.

See this speech in context