Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will respond quickly to the few points raised by Deputy Boyd Barrett. He mentioned conspiracy theories and proposed that we do not get involved in them in this House. I would argue that he elucidated one particular conspiracy theory over the past ten minutes. This is that we are somehow setting out through the creation of SOLAS II to dumb down and under-resource further education and training in this country. We are setting out to achieve the opposite. We are not creating a super-quango.

To be fair to the Deputy, what we are trying to achieve is a difficult concept to get one's head around. This is one of the most ground-breaking and reforming pieces of legislation that will come before the House in the lifetime of this Government. The closest analogy I can draw is to the function of the Higher Education Authority in terms of its relationship with universities and institutes of technology. The Higher Education Authority has a board and executive that determine the long-term vision and strategy for the direction and ambitions of the higher education sector. The board of SOLAS will have a similar function - no more and no less than that. The democratic power emanating from communities across the country that has been a critical part of the VEC structure in the past will remain that. The rapport that Deputy Boyd Barrett said has been established between the VEC sector, learners, employers and enterprise in his constituency will remain and will be enhanced through this process rather than detracted from.

I understand why people seeing such substantial change happening would question the reason for it and perhaps see that it somehow undermines their position. It is often difficult to convince people of the need for such change. Over the past year and a half, I have actively engaged with teaching and managerial staff, learners and trainees in every sector and have found nothing but significant enthusiasm among the sector for the changes we are suggesting. The sector will openly admit that it has grown organically into a rather fragmented structure across the country. There is significant duplication ongoing. For example, if a VEC in Donegal decided tomorrow morning to spend valuable taxpayers' resources on developing a new course in aquaculture, which might be very pertinent to the local economy, it is quite possible that a VEC in Galway, Kerry or other fishing communities across the country might not even be aware that such a course has been developed. Certainly there would not have been the level of co-operation and collaboration between the VECs to allow that course to be delivered elsewhere.

I agree with Deputy Boyd Barrett about the expertise that has been developed over decades of work within the VEC structure. What we are going to do here is bring together all the expertise, which is very significant, under one umbrella group or entity and then bolt on all the expertise that exists within the training sector, which again has been developed using valuable taxpayers' resources through the decades through FÁS. Bringing those together will create a powerful opportunity for people who need to gain the highest quality of educational opportunity locally. That is exactly what SOLAS is setting out to create.

As Minister of State with responsibility for training and skills, it is my responsibility to ensure that the Department through its regional and local presence provides timely, realistic and relevant opportunities for individuals to continue their education and training and for them to be equipped to avail of future job opportunities. A common number of themes emerged from the discussion last night and today. The need for our further education and training sector to keep pace with a rapidly evolving economy and jobs market was one of the major themes that emerged from our discussions. That is very much what we intend to do with the creation of SOLAS. In conjunction with Forfás, we are carrying out significant research on the skills shortages occurring now and those that may occur in the medium and long term. The new ETB structures under the aegis of SOLAS will also be obliged to carry out research in Dún Laoghaire, Galway and elsewhere to find out what skills shortages are unique to those regions and need to be responded to quickly. In a recent press interview, I suggested that FÁS was a very large behemoth of an organisation that was perhaps incapable of responding quickly to urgent changes in the jobs market. The new ETB structure under the aegis of SOLAS will be like a speedboat - able to rush to address new skills shortages and new evolution and innovation in our jobs market.

I recall reading a piece in Newsweek a number of weeks which stated that 50% of the careers that will exist by 2025 do not exist now. That is how rapidly the jobs market is changing. I read another piece online last night which stated that in the US alone, 300,000 jobs have been created developing apps for iPhones and other mobile devices. I spoke with the leader of an international software company six months' ago who told me that 85% of that company's revenue now accrues from products developed over the past 18 months. Standing still is not an option anymore. If Ireland is to remain globally competitive and at the helm of global technology development, we need to ensure that we have people to feed into and play a very active role in that process of growth and innovation. It is critical that we have training, upskilling and further education opportunities available.

That is what we are setting out to do here. There is no underhand scheme to somehow privatise the sector. FÁS in its current incarnation would already outsource about 75% to 80% of its training because the organisation does not have the capacity to deliver in the numbers we need. What I also want to see happening through the creation of SOLAS is for us to be able to actively interact with every person we either train or educate so that we can find out from him or her at an individual level how effective and meaningful the intervention has been for him or her. We will do this through an innovative software system. In the past, FÁS and the VECs gathered some of that information but more often than not, it was not used but was stored away in filing cabinets. It did not play a part in forming the long-term education and training ambitions or goals at either regional or national level. If one has all that data gathered, can track every individual and know that her or she was supported in a software, managerial or other course in any location in the country, one can tell whether he or she is back in further or higher education, is in employment or unemployed six months' later, as well as the other resources he or she needs.

In any location in the country, one can tell exactly six months later whether they are back in further or higher education, in employment or still in unemployment. That information at one's fingertips will be a very powerful tool in designing further education and training opportunities in the future.

Together with the Minister, Deputy Quinn, I am very confident and passionately believe that we are heading in the right direction. I want this to be successful. I look forward to hearing the contributions on Committee Stage. I am anxious to be as conciliatory and as collaborative as I can when dealing with the concerns of Members. I hope to be able to address those concerns in so far as possible.

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