Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I fully agree with the Deputy. With World Autism Month coming up, and Deputy Stanton has posed a question that will enable me to get into this more, we have so much more we need to do here. As a country, we have made quite a lot of progress in primary and secondary schools. There is still far too much of a cliff edge from my perspective for too many students who are neurodiverse, autistic students and others when they move from second level to third level. We have work under way but I want to challenge myself and ourselves to do more in that regard.

The Deputy is right. I remember that visit with him to WWETB. Far too often, people think training in retrofitting will be an apprenticeship or a couple of years which they could not do as they are in employment or are too busy. It is three days in many cases. In three days you can future-proof your job or your own workforce. We can use this year to get that messaging out. We cannot talk about it enough because, as the Deputy rightly says, there is a direct correlation between some of the massive societal challenges we face and those faced around the globe and the skills and the labour force we have to address those issues.

Good progress is being made on microcredentials. There is an opportunity to do more. Compared with other international regulators, Quality and Qualifications Ireland, QQI, is leading the way on this, and I know it will be keen to continue to do so.

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