Richard Bruton (Dublin North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Government adopted a national talent drive last year. The consequence of this is that the Minister of State, Deputy English, has introduced 25 new apprenticeships which will have 1,500 people enrolled each year in entirely new areas of apprenticeship as well as significant growth in the traditional apprenticeship areas. We have doubled the output in ICT. When we started, we were supplying only about 45% of the ICT needed domestically, but we are now pushing that up to 75%. We have undertaken the regional skills evaluation, and as Deputy Naughten acknowledges, if we can get the skill mix right in our regions and get a magnet there for skill attraction, we can do much better there. We are good for skill availability. The IDA has many rankings that show that skill availability in many of these critical sectors is better in Ireland than in many other locations. These are tight areas and there are difficulties.

I certainly will look at the talent issue. A lot of that is around costs and investment, and everyone knows that in recent years there has been curtailment of the capacity to invest. In terms of the competitiveness which concerns the Deputy, we have boxed clever and sought to ensure that we have invested in skills that are close to those enterprises that the Deputy is concerned about.

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