Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputies Stanton and Durkan for their inventions. Going back to what Deputy Bruton said regarding what happened at the committee with the consultancy firms, I will certain review it and have a look at it. However, "Yes" is the answer. Deputy Stanton referred to this being a fourth industrial revolution. The last time, we had the introduction of robotics and all of a sudden people who were on assembly lines were made irrelevant and redundant and were put on a scrapheap. That is not where we want to get to. Neither do we want to get to a situation where senior officials in the permanent government are in any way discommoded or behind the curve on what is the best available advice. I will certainly have a look at the committee's deliberations and the conclusions it reached. Particularly given the remit of the Department of further and higher education into the future, not just for the current cohort of people doing their leaving certificate or about to enter junior infants but for people for the next 30 or 40 years, if the Deputy is asking whether I believe our senior officials should embrace that sort of opportunity to think outside the box, then the answer is absolutely "Yes".

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