Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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63. To ask the Minister for Education and Skills if he will provide an update on the work of the National Skills Council; what the council's proposed work plan is for 2023; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [15656/23]

Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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I believe Deputy Flaherty is substituting for his colleague.

Joe Flaherty (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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I am a most unlikely sub. Will the Minister provide an update on the work of the National Skills Council, including its proposed 2023 work plan, and make a statement on the matter?

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I thank Deputies Flaherty and Niamh Smyth for tabling this question.

The National Skills Council is the high-level advisory group on skills in Ireland and provides an opportunity for strategic dialogue and advice to inform Government decision-making to ensure our skills ecosystem continues to be flexible, agile and responsive to the needs of the future world of work. A key work plan priority for the council has been to support the OECD review of our national skills strategy, which I initiated last year and is nearing completion. This will be the largest review of our skills infrastructure in a generation. We have asked the OECD to examine the skills infrastructure, what works, what could work better and how our national skills strategy measures up to best international practice. The OECD has undertaken an intensive body of work and has held a series of bilateral engagements with members of the National Skills Council. There were three extraordinary meetings of the council in 2022, which facilitated a strong input in the review and, I hope, embedded a partnership approach throughout it.

As the OECD project reaches its final stages, this partnership with all stakeholders, under the aegis of the National Skills Council, continues to be central in our approach to addressing future skills needs. The council's members will have a key role in assessing and prioritising the OECD's recommendations for the next step in the development of a skills ecosystem in response to the key mega trends that have been highlighted in the OECD review, those being, digitisation, decarbonisation and demographic change.

Intensive work by my Department, including the secretariat for the National Skills Council in my Department, remains focused on finalising the review. This work will inform how the council's mandate can best be shaped for the remainder of 2023 and the future in advancing what must be ambitious goals for skills, talent and workforce development. The OECD's project will inform us on the future mandate, direction, work plan and programme for the National Skills Council. It will also present to the Government and the wider Oireachtas a number of policy considerations. Two of the areas where we must do much more are how we support people in work who need to upskill and reskill and how we support employers, particularly SMEs. We await the outcome of the review.

Joe Flaherty (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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The OECD report will be timely and will inform what is a dynamic sector for us. The council brings education and training providers together with representatives from business to respond effectively to skill needs. Every Deputy will agree that the council is a forum that has effected significant change.

This is an evolving scene, with the training needs of multiple industries changing daily. The National Skills Council has played a key role in overseeing this and assisting numerous industries. It also plays a key role in advising the Minister and his Department on priority skill needs and the direction of skills and knowledge development in line with global trends. It was vital we linked up with the OECD on the report. Will the Minister outline key growth areas for the skills that are being flagged?

Rose Conway-Walsh (Mayo, Sinn Fein)
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I very much welcome this OECD report and look forward to examining it. It is crucial to our economic growth going forward. The national skills input into that will determine how we shape and create the human workforce as we go forward. We also need to be cognisant of the need to join things up. If we are encouraging lifelong education and upskilling of the workforce, we need to look at how we fund part-time education. We also need to look at the interaction between AI and the service industries and how we can create growth there and regional growth right across the country. As we look forward to an all-island economy and how to maximise the potential there, it is important that we have that. That is why I would like to see education included in the North-South Ministerial Council, because it is important that we have a workforce right across the island that can maximise how we address the challenges and the opportunities in the future.

Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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We are all aware of the need for lifelong learning and upskilling. The Minister has visited my home county, where projects have been run by the Louth and Meath Education and Training Board, LMETB, such as the advanced manufacturing and training centre of excellence, AMTCE. A huge part of that is engaging with industry. I have a very specific question. A number of employers have spoken about the need for human skills and soft skills, interpersonal skills and communication skills. That is something that is sometimes lacking in people who are entering the workforce. It is something that can be built and is necessary build into the education system, particularly for those going through further and higher education. It is something we as a State need to ensure is part of the entire educational set-up.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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I agree with Deputy Ó Murchú. There is no ETB in Ireland that has done as well as LMETB in terms of putting forward exciting projects. We see them both in Dundalk and Drogheda. Later today I will publish a progress report on the Drogheda implementation group. My sector of further and higher education, as distinct from my role in the Department of Justice, played an important role in hopefully helping embed some of those recommendations. I thank the Deputy for his co-operation and work with us on those things.

The National Skills Council is serving Ireland well. I thank its members. I also thank those in our national skills infrastructure in general, including the regional skills forums. When I engage with international colleagues people ask about our skills infrastructure. It is viewed as good and I thank those in the sector for that. However, we cannot be complacent, for all the reasons Deputy Conway-Walsh referenced. I attended some fascinating meetings with Enterprise Ireland in San Francisco recently on artificial intelligence. The world is about to change again. It is a question of how we keep up, get ahead of that and benefit from it.

On the key areas, the lifelong learning piece is going to be important. That will involve joining up the dots around how SUSI works, how the NTF interacts and how to support both the employer and the employee. We need to recognise that the student or learner will not be able to access learning full-time as they will be trying to hold down a job at the same time. These are big issues and I hope the report will guide us all as an Oireachtas as to how we take this forward.

Joe Flaherty (Longford-Westmeath, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the Minister. I welcome the second half of the group of sixth year pupils from the Newtownforbes national school, Scoil Mhuire. I am conscious that the last meeting of the council took place in October. At that time, there was a discussion on potential policy directions for priority under the theme of strengthening the governance to build a joined-up skills ecosystem. The discussion centred on three key points, namely, promoting a whole-of-government and strategic approach to skills policy, supporting effective engagement with stakeholders throughout the skills policy cycle and strengthening the collective use and dissemination of skills information. I would be most interested to hear the Minister's views on any outcomes of these discussions and if there are any actions the Department can build on from them.

Simon Harris (Wicklow, Fine Gael)
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The Deputy is having a busy day with the school tours. I join with him in welcoming the second group of sixth years from Newtownforbes national school. They are very welcome to the Dáil.

The Deputy is right. What he read out with regard to its last meeting is an indication of the valuable work done by the National Skills Council. Away from the day to day stuff, it provides the council with an opportunity to scan the horizon and look at the changes that need to be brought in in the months and years ahead. My initial reflection from that meeting would be that the whole-of-government approach is absolutely key. We have a Department now that did not exist a number of years ago and we have it thanks to the Tánaiste. It was his view that we should create a Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science. I hope that during that time it has shown its value and I think it has in many areas. However, the actual skills agenda is going to involve all Departments, whether the Department of Education, early years education with ECCE and the Department of Children, Disability, Equality, Integration and Youth or the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment. It is about how we live and how we work. There is also the Work Life Balance Bill. There are so many different areas here that need to pull togather. The skills council has representatives from across government and across agencies to try to have that whole-of-government approach. That will be key to the success when the OECD report is concluded.

Kathleen Funchion (Carlow-Kilkenny, Sinn Fein)
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If the Minister is agreeable, we might go back to Question No. 61.