Ann Ormonde (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. This motion refers to the level of employment in Ireland; Ireland is a success story since there is very little unemployment. In comparison with our European partners, Ireland is a first-class model country, which fact is well established. There may be black spots but ten years ago, when I was dealing with young students' transition from school to work, we had difficulty finding jobs for them. However, having discussed the matter with colleagues in the world of work, there is now no difficulty getting jobs for people.

I am delighted our strategy is working. Government policies are working in tackling unemployment. Nonetheless, I agree there are black spots which must be examined. The Minister has referred to these and to how we can best move forward by upskilling and reskilling people in this situation. This must be achieved through programmes such as the FÁS programme. I am glad the Minister referred to the research which is under way to discover how best the Government can ascertain the future skill needs. The Government's aim is that by 2010 Ireland will have a very good knowledge-based economy and we are moving in that direction.

The House had a very good debate yesterday on the OECD report on how we can best interdepartmentalise to effectively bring forward education and training, to know where are the black spots and be ready when a business closes down so that we can move jobs from one area to another with little difficulty. The Minister has referred to this approach and the budget for this year acknowledges it. The Department is focusing on areas in which there is a lack of skills upgrading.

I am glad that legislation will be introduced regarding work permits for immigrants because it has been very loosely applied. It is far better to introduce legislation to impose a structure on the system so that skills can be assessed when people arrive in Ireland to see how best they can be allocated to jobs suited to their education and skills. The Minister of State should take from this debate the fact that there is insufficient collaboration between the Departments of Education and Science and Enterprise, Trade and Employment. There is a variety of programmes at leaving certificate stage and vocational leaving certificate stage and one wonders how they are complemented in FÁS programmes. There are also issues in regard to lifelong learning. There are black spots in how we go about our work but we have a good story; let us sell it. This is a first-class country which is the envy of our EU partners. I am delighted to endorse this fine motion.

Where we have to upskill and reskill, perhaps we should talk to industry and the business world to see how we can move forward on research and development, about which issue I could come into my own. It is in research and development that we will succeed in future, to which the OECD report referred. We must commit ourselves to it.