Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for this question, a version of which he quite regularly puts down. It is important that we make sure the third level education system and our skills infrastructure are prepared for the future requirements of our economy and society. We are undergoing a dual transition, with the greening of the economy and the digital transformation, and we have to make sure the third level education sector is able to respond to that. My Department continues to prioritise strengthening our skills ecosystem to ensure it will have the agility and flexibility to adapt to the changing priorities in skills and workforce development. This focus is underpinned by a detailed and comprehensive OECD report on Ireland's skills strategy, which I commissioned and which was published on 9 May.

Bodies such as the SOLAS skills and labour market research unit and our expert group on future skills needs have a key role in assessing and forecasting the skills and talent needs in an economy being transformed by both digitisation and the decarbonisation agenda. The analysis these bodies carry out is central to informing the programme planning throughout the tertiary system and flexible and innovative responses to changes in the world of work through the human capital initiative and Springboard+. That agility and flexibility is underscored by the responsiveness to industry and enterprise workforce needs under a number of initiatives. The action plan for apprenticeships, for example, is a practical way of providing other pathways for qualification in a way that works for both learners and industry. Other examples are the green skills for further education and training roadmap and the national digital strategy, Harnessing Digital.

Ireland's success in ensuring those with qualifications from the tertiary system meet the economy's needs is evidenced by the results of the Higher Education Authority's national graduate outcome survey, which shows that 81.9% of graduates in 2021 were in employment nine months after graduation. We now have the lowest level of unemployment in the history of our State. I assure the Deputy it will be a priority to ensure a continued level of responsiveness by our education system to what is rapid technological change, including from, in particular, the expected substantial impact of artificial intelligence, AI, on our workforce.

See this speech in context