Feargal Quinn (Independent)

I thank the Cathaoirleach for the opportunity to speak and welcome the Minister of State. As Senator White stated, I sought this debate some time ago and therefore welcome it. I also welcome the publication of the Fourth Report of the Expert Group on Future Skills Needs and compliment the chairman of the group, Dr. Danny O'Hare, on the excellent work his committee has done. I also commend and wish well Anne Heraty, announced by the Minister today as the future chairperson of the group.

It is incumbent on all of us to pay attention to what the group says. Not only must we listen, we must take the action spelled out in the report. I hope, in particular, that the fine words used by the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment and the Minister for Education and Science in welcoming the report will be matched by the resources they make available to implement its recommendations.

I regularly make the point that our modern economy demands that we take action earlier if we are to keep abreast of change. Therefore, I am delighted to see so much attention has been given to this here. The expert group examined in detail the prospects for several key sectors, to which the Minister of State referred. He broke them down clearly and detailed them, as did Senators Coghlan and White. All of these sectors offer different scenarios for the future. For example, there seems to be no major problem on the horizon for financial services but for other sectors, such as the food processing industry, one about which Senator White knows much, the main problem seems to be with the industry itself rather than specifically with the skills required. I take note of that with particular regret because it has always seemed to me that one of the country's great lost opportunities was the area of food processing — a field in which our agricultural heritage should have given us the opportunity for a flying start. However, our performance has never equalled my hopes.

Approximately ten years ago, I had the opportunity to sit on the expert group on food and compiled a minority report which found that food processing should be anywhere but under the remit of the Department of Agriculture and Food — in other words, it must be market driven. We have not achieved nearly as much as we should have. I sit on an advisory group of the national food centre. Its heart is in the right place but the opportunity is very often driven by the suppliers rather than the marketplace.

For two of the most important sectors, the ICT and the biotechnology sectors, skills are at the heart of the problem. There is a significant danger that our ability to compete effectively in these areas will be seriously compromised by skills shortages unless we take effective and early action. In both of these sectors, we are hobbled by our traditions and our views of ourselves. Put bluntly, we see ourselves as an arts and humanities country and not a scientific one. The problem is that our economic future depends critically on us becoming a scientific country. Important as it is in its own way, we cannot expect Riverdance to drive our economic future. It is great to see such a success, but it is unlikely that is where our future will lie.

The Government and the people must get serious about science. In a way, we have been spoiled by our own success over the past 30 years or so. Up to now, we have succeeded in meeting the scientific demands on us by engaging in relatively low value industrial activities — there have been some great successes about which Senator White spoke — and by the large-scale importation of technological competence. However, as we move up the value chain, which we must do if we are to survive, we need more real scientists to drive our efforts.

I commend the Government on recognising the importance of research for our future even though there have been some dangerous wobbles in its support for it. This report clearly shows that our ability to deliver an efficient level of scientific skills will depend on one thing only, that is, the number of young people who make the decision to make their careers in a science related discipline. All the signs point in the wrong direction. At second level, the number of students taking the threshold subjects for science is falling. At third level, the number of students applying for places on undergraduate programmes relating to science is falling which, in turn, creates knock-on doubts about the equality of our graduates.

In view of this continuing problem, it is a matter of alarm that the blueprint for dealing with the situation — the report of the Task Force on the Physical Sciences — has been gathering dust on the Minister's shelf for almost two years. There is no sign that the problem is being taken with anything like the seriousness it deserves. In the meantime, we are making a time bomb which will eventually explode with devastating effects. We have had the opportunity to do something about it for at least two years but we do not seem to be moving on it.

The fundamental problem revolves around the low interest in science as a career, and I look forward to hearing Senator Ormonde's contribution given her career in career guidance. There is another aspect of this issue which has not received enough attention. As a nation, we simply do not put enough care and resources into the task of helping our children decide and choose which career they will make for themselves. Too often, the choice is driven by fad or fashion or by inappropriate motives. I remember in the late 1980s when there was a big hoo-ha about our national shortage of marketing expertise. Suddenly, marketing became the flavour of the month with young people. I remember being asked to speak at the Foresight Business Studies Group in Trinity College, probably in the late 1970s, and it seemed to be news to people at that stage. Suddenly, marketing became the thing to do but within a short period of time, the shortage of marketing skills turned into a surplus. What was obvious to me was that many of the young people going into marketing were doing so without giving it much thought. They went into marketing because it was the fashionable thing to do.

More recently, we saw an upsurge in people applying for computer courses because they were seduced by nothing better than greed. The prospect of becoming a dotcom millionaire by the age of 25 was attractive. We can laugh at those motives but we should be concerned at the vacuum these people fill. There is a lack of proper advice and information for young people about careers which leads them to make hasty decisions they sometimes find impossible to carry through. Meanwhile, the bulk of young people choose to follow the existing role models rather than explore the new possibilities opened up by the world in which we now live. I stress that the task is not so much to make science-related subjects fashionable but to bring much more serious and focused attention and thinking to the choosing of careers. I hope the Minister for Education and Science, having been a career guidance counsellor in a former life, will see the sense of the argument.

I wish to turn to an aspect of the report which deals with skills of quite a different type — Senator White spoke about these soft skills. Most of the attention is given to job specific skills and the need to match the availability of particular specialised skills to the needs future industry will have for them. However, as the report points out, there are changes in train in regard to what are called the more general soft skills, which are increasingly in demand across the world spectrum of industrial activity at all levels.

I came across this area in the 1990s when I chaired the committee which introduced and guided the introduction of the leaving certificate applied programme. That steering committee came under curriculum and assessment. As that qualification is primarily intended for young people who go into employment rather than go on to third level after leaving school, it was crucial for us to know what skills employers needed, especially skills they felt were neglected by the existing school system. When reading this report by the future skills group, I found myself on familiar ground. As we found out in our work on the leaving certificate applied, there is an emerging need from employers for a group of skills which have up to now been, more or less, neglected by our educational system. One such skill is the ability to use knowledge creatively and to solve new problems rather than simply to apply expert knowledge to existing problems. Another such skill is the ability to work effectively in teams and to take satisfaction from group achievement — working together as a team is so necessary — rather than the overwhelming emphasis on individual performance which, I suppose, is more in our tradition. Changing tack in regard to basic skills of this type is as an important part of the task which faces us in providing the highly technical and job specific skills on which we tend to focus when we consider this subject.

I commend the expert group on this good report which is well worth reading and I commend it for throwing its net wide enough to include many important dimensions. I hope the report receives attention and that resources will be allocated where they are needed in this area. The report is worthwhile and I am pleased we have had the opportunity to debate it.