James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)

Central to the Deputy's question is the provision of information in whatever form. The question mentioned an information hub. It goes back to a deeper question about how we guide young people - some not so young - but primarily school-leavers into the right choices in their career paths. We need to recognise that the day of a job for life is gone. We see the advent of digital and AI with skills changing all the time. We realise that the job market and the skills needs of today are not those of yesterday and indeed not those of tomorrow. Last Thursday I launched the national skills report with Dr. Kevin Marshall. On behalf of the Government, he is putting in place a skills report which looks at the future skills needs of the labour force. Following an OECD report he is working with his team to put in place a national skills observatory to look at the skills needed in different areas so that we can manage the pipeline and ensure those needs are being met.

There are a number of different routes through the system and there are challenges navigating that when people are trying to make those decisions at the early stages. There are centralised websites such as qualifax.ie which has outlines course and qualifications details. CAO.ie is probably one of the better known ones. We also have susi.ie for student grants and apprenticeship.ie for people taking the apprenticeship route. There is a lot of good information but it is scattered across different websites and can be confusing and time-consuming to navigate. It is especially challenging for those in lower socioeconomic spectrums who may not have that social capital behind them in terms of a parent or sibling who may have navigated the system before them and may find it even more challenging than others.

The programme for Government contains a commitment to create a new website with comprehensive information on third level pathways, supporting students across the island. That is an objective I am working towards and I have discussed with the northern stakeholders as part of my tour as a new Minister. We already pulling together the CAO and apprenticeship courses so that there is single information point. On an all-island basis, we are working on synchronising the UCAS and the CAO sites. I discussed that with the Minister, Dr. Archibald, at the North-South Ministerial Council recently. A lot of work is being done in that area. I will come back with more in my supplementary reply.

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