Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am satisfied that we are beginning to make progress, but I am not satisfied that we are there yet, to be truthful. We need Youthreach to be much more prominent as an option for young people who have difficulty with school for a whole variety of reasons. We need to help them get to Youthreach, be made aware of it and have a better understanding of it.

We need to get real about adult literacy. We live in a knowledge-based economy of well-educated people, but nearly one in five of us cannot read, nearly one in four of us cannot understand numbers, for example, on our ESB bill, and almost one in two of us lacks basic digital skills. We cannot leave people locked out. That is why we have launched our new adult literacy plan, the first ever ten-year adult literacy, numeracy and digital skills plan. We have not just launched a plan; we now have money to hire a literacy co-ordinator in every ETB in Ireland in 2022.

We must move beyond the narrow view of education that it is age-bound or that it is just for some people. It must be for everybody and it must be provided in a way that works for everyone. There are still too many people who are at risk of being locked of full economic or societal participation if we do not get this right.

See this speech in context