Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I move: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

It is a great pleasure to present to the House the Ministers and Secretaries and Ministerial, Parliamentary, Judicial and Court Offices (Amendment) Bill 2020, which passed all Stages in the Seanad yesterday. This Bill establishes, for the first time in the history of the State, a Department focused on further and higher education, research, innovation and science. We will now have a Department whose chief remit will be the further and higher education needs of our economy and our people. While some people may view the new Department as one for universities or students, it is about much more than that. I see its establishment as an opportunity to shape our future. Our young people are our future and we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to remove the limits to their ambition. We have a chance to dismantle the barriers to third level education, real and perceived, and remove preconceived notions of what third level education is and should be. Crucially, we have a chance to ensure the experience of a third level education is available to all, regardless of age, gender or background.

There is an inherent bias in our system which presumes that tertiary education is for some and not for all. I want to change that. I passionately believe that we shut down conversations much too early in regard to the range of opportunities that are available to people to fulfil their ambition and realise their career goals. I see this new Department as an economic driver and an opportunity to future-proof the economy and build on the foundations in place. It will also provide a means to drive social inclusion and use education to better our country. We know what our challenges will be for the next decade and we need to equip ourselves to deal with them. We must offer the right education and the proper training and channel those skills into solving the problems not just of today but of tomorrow.

We have started well. This week we launched a €168 million package of supports for the third level sector and students. We published our reopening plans and announced the commencement dates for all first-year college students. These measures will help with the return of further and higher education in September and offer practical supports to students to address the digital divide, which is a major issue that is under-discussed and under-recognised in this country, and ensure nobody is left behind. I am pleased to inform the House that yesterday I met representatives from the Irish Universities Association, the Technological Higher Education Association and Technological University Dublin to discuss the reopening of our colleges. At the meeting, the three representative bodies confirmed that the induction of first-year students is a priority and that they are seeking to welcome those students from late September or early October, with the majority of third level institutions seeking to open for first-year students in the week beginning 28 September.

Today, as part of the July stimulus, I will be announcing a €100 million package to fund more than 35,000 extra places in further and higher education. I will also launch a special €12 million incentivisation scheme for employers to take on apprentices, the first time such an incentive has been offered, outside of the female bursary, for any employer to take on an apprentice. Under the scheme, employers will receive €2,000 up front for each apprentice they take on and, 12 months later, a further €1,000 if the apprentice is still on their books. The apprenticeship model in this country has huge potential. To be frank, our discussion around education has perhaps been too snobby in the past. Apprenticeships offer major opportunities to people in the crafts field and well beyond it. If we look at other European countries, a huge amount is being done to develop apprenticeships. I intend to bring forward an action plan on apprenticeships, in consultation with the Apprenticeship Council, early next year. I will update Government on that consultation process next Monday.

These measures are just the beginning. As part of the budget process, I will be working with my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Niall Collins, to examine how we can reduce the cost of third level education over the next five years and remove some of the barriers to accessing it. I firmly believe that there is no policy more transformational than widening educational access and, alongside that, broadening our view of what education is. In my previous role, I saw at first hand how important innovation, science and research were in our response to Covid. I want Ireland to continue to grow in strength as a global centre of research and innovation. I want to give our research community the opportunities to foster their greatest skills and imagination in dealing with the biggest problems of today.

We have made a start in that regard with the new €5 million fund to examine Covid-19 and why some people are immune but others are not, identify antibody testing and rapidly deploy it. I wish the crew in Trinity College Dublin who are working on the project all the very best.

I wish to develop research centres across the country and invest in science and medicine. I have only been in this role for four weeks, but I am excited and energised by all those I have met and I very much look forward to working with all Members of the House. The Government and the Oireachtas have an opportunity to develop this Department into an engine to advance several of the priorities of Deputies across the political divide. I look forward to working genuinely with them in that regard.

The purpose of the Department becomes clear when one visits places such as An Cosán in Jobstown, as I did the week before last. I met people who are in direct provision and travel from Carrick-on-Suir to Jobstown to complete their studies. The Government wishes to shut down direct provision and come up with a much better model, but, in the meantime, community education is providing an opportunity for people in direct provision. I met a woman in her 60s who decided to go back to education having previously been a family carer. She completed her degree through An Cosán. People who were lacking in confidence have overcome that hurdle and many others through community education and flexible learning. I have no doubt that the sector for which I now have political responsibility has the opportunity to be transformational in every sense of the word for families and communities in rural and urban Ireland.

The name of the Department is long as we could not come up with a snappy title, but the Bill is short and quite technical in nature. It allows for the creation of the Department. It provides for the body of law which relates to ministerial powers and Departments to apply to the new Department. It also allows for certain orders to be made in respect of the new Department and my office as Minister. These orders include transfer of functions and alteration of name orders. As Deputies will be aware, the transfer of most legal functions into the Department will take place through transfer of functions orders from the Departments of Education and Skills and Business, Enterprise and Innovation. Work is under way on these issues with a view to an expeditious transfer of responsibilities. I hope most of that work will be completed before the House resumes after the summer recess.

It is a great honour to be the first holder of this important post. I am very excited by the opportunities we will have to make a difference and implement the ambitious range of measures relating to this sector which are outlined in the programme for Government. I and the Minister of State, Deputy Collins, look forward to hearing the contributions of Members and having an opportunity to engage substantively with them on the many issues in the areas of further education, higher education, training, skills, research, science and innovation.

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