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

I thank the Deputy Mulherin for raising this matter.

Under the National Tourism Development Authority Act 2003, the training and education of workers in the tourism and hospitality industry fall under the remit of Fáilte Ireland, which is responsible for enterprise support, capability building and human resource development for the tourism industry. At the same time, SOLAS and my Department have overall responsibility for ensuring Ireland has the skills required to meet the needs of all industry.

Fáilte Ireland's approach to delivering training to the tourism sector has evolved over the past ten years. The sharp economic downturn adversely affected employment levels within tourism and employment opportunities. As a consequence, the priorities within the tourism industry changed to on-site practical training interventions to help boost productivity and sustain existing jobs. At the same time, Fáilte Ireland, in conjunction with the institutes of technology, has developed a strategy for the provision of hospitality and tourism programmes to provide a sustainable supply of industry ready staff to the tourism industry over the medium term. A critical aspect of the collaboration between Fáilte Ireland and the institutes of technology is that the former has sought and secured the provision of improved training and career prospects for new entrants. New apprenticeship style models have been developed and put in place across the country together with an accelerated training programme for chefs and restaurant service.

For individuals who are eager to join the workforce but do not want to attend college full-time, Fáilte Ireland supports a number of earn and learn programmes. These programmes enable individuals to attend college part-time to receive a fully recognised qualification, while receiving valuable paid work experience in a best practice establishment in the tourism industry. Fáilte Ireland considers that the range of courses delivered to 1,600 students at third level annually addresses adequately the vocational training needs of the industry.

In 2012, Fáilte Ireland provided training and business support to just under 17,000 trainees, students, employees and employers. Concerns are sometimes expressed, as noted by Deputy Mulherin, that there is a shortage of trained personnel available to work as chefs, particularly in the restaurant sector. However, statistics available to Fáilte Ireland suggest that this skills shortage does not exist on a national basis. My Department has a broader concern that training and education offerings are aligned with the needs of industry and jobseekers. It should be noted that there is also some provision at both FÁS and VEC level for professional and general cooking courses.

SOLAS, the new further education and training authority, is being established as a funding and oversight body under the aegis of my Department to ensure the provision of 21st century high quality further education and training programmes to learners. Section 9 of the Further Education and Training Bill 2013 provides that SOLAS, once established, will prepare a strategy in respect of further education and training.

SOLAS will promote further education and training provision that is relevant to individual learner needs and national skills needs, This includes the needs of business and future skills needs.

The Deputy may also be interested to know that in consultation with the Restaurants Association of Ireland, a new general cookery course with up to 100 places has been launched through the Momentum programme. FÁS has issued tenders for training entities to get involved in that.

In collaboration with industry, we are carrying out a review of our national apprenticeship schemes to determine how we can deliver the best apprenticeship opportunities to all our people, particularly our unemployed young people. Following that review, I expect significant developments built around partnership between SOLAS, our education and training boards and the hotel and catering sector.

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