Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The cuts the Government is planning to impose on the further education sector are retrograde, stupid and defy any logic. The Government regularly claims that its priorities are to create jobs, re-skill and retrain those who have lost jobs in order to prepare them for a return to employment and to protect the vulnerable against the impact of austerity and cuts. The cuts in the further education sector fail having regard to all of these priorities and do precisely the opposite to what the Government claims it is committed to doing because the further education sector caters for some of the most disadvantaged communities in society, those who have lost their jobs as a result of the economic crisis and who are in difficulty and need to be re-skilled and retrained in order to have some chance of returning to employment.

The cuts being made will also lead to the loss of existing jobs, the loss of approximately 500 temporary jobs and up to 200 permanent jobs. The cuts make no sense whatsoever. The range of courses that will be available to people who are seeking to re-skill or retrain or who are not candidates for university will be degraded and reduced, further reducing the opportunities for people who find themselves in this situation. Therefore, I urge the Government to rethink its position urgently. The further education sector provides a significant service for society, particularly the most marginalised, and is a key part of any serious attempt to chart a way out of the unemployment crisis. The Minister should reverse the cuts.

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