Marian Harkin (Sligo-Leitrim, Independent)

It is very good news that Galway was one of two colleges given approval to proceed to the next step under the FET college of the future major projects fund. A total of 12 colleges have been earmarked and eight of them are progressing now. The Minister announced earlier this week that Galway was one of those eight colleges. Of course, the other four are on stream.

Returning to the Deputy's contribution, it is important to say when we talk about this new FET strategy that it will endeavour to respond to the OECD skills strategy review. This highlights the need for a more balanced educational and skills system. The Deputy mentioned apprenticeships. The 16 ETBs are uniquely positioned within the tertiary education landscape to address those core immediate skills. As the Minister said, we were down yesterday at the Mount Lucas construction training centre with the modern methods of construction, MMC, accelerator platform. It was really good to see some of the positive things happening.

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