Paschal Donohoe (Fine Gael)

I join others in welcoming the Minister of State to the House. Although I was not present during the earlier part of this debate, I listened and watched upstairs and heard the Minister of State's contribution and the comments of different people. I will start by quoting a number of figures which set the entire debate in context, namely, the gross domestic product per head of population in Ireland and a number of other countries. The figures are from last year. In Ireland, the GDP per capita was €139,000. The equivalent figure in Poland was €58,000 and that of Turkey was €28,000. Those figures represent many different things, such as living standards and the values of currencies in these countries. However, one fact they indicate which is pertinent to this discussion is the huge differences in the competitiveness of these economies. For example, in a country such as Turkey, income and purchasing power are a fraction of ours. This will have a profound impact on the ability of our country to be competitive in the future.

A sign of these developments, as I mentioned in a previous debate on this subject, is that the more competitive countries are now advertising this fact in the business press. A number of months ago Estonia had a full-page advertisement every week in The Economist, and for the past two weeks it has been Turkey, with an advertisement co-sponsored by Hyundai which points out how cheap it is to do business in Turkey, how little people need to be paid, how educated the workforce is and how high the productivity. The reason I mention this point is that it would be easy for us — but a huge mistake — to underestimate the phenomenal power of globalisation and the way in which the competitive sands upon which our economy and society are built are shifting every day. It is a relentless turmoil in which something that is competitive one day or month or year is no longer competitive the next.

All of these figures are deeply relevant to my experience of working in an industry which is affected by this. As I listen to the speeches people make in this and the other House, I am struck by the difference in the quality and passion of the contributions of people who have been involved with the industries affected by this. Something that we in the Oireachtas need to consider is the degree to which the sectors that produce this wealth and employ people are under-represented in the Oireachtas. Senator Mary White has experience in employing people and running a competitive business. That is all I did for ten years before I came to the House. With the potential exception of energy security, this is the most important challenge we will face as a country in the future. These two issues — keeping our labour market competitive and maintaining access to energy supplies — are those on which we will stand or fall.

While preparing for this debate I read the report of the National Competitiveness Council from 2006 in which it was mentioned that we need to focus on these two issues. I am concerned that the urgency of the competitiveness issue is not appreciated. This is not a point about the Government, as I refer to politicians of all parties. We do not give this the weight and credence that we need to. It is the responsibility of us all, and I will illustrate this with a number of facts.

In 2004 only six other OECD countries had a worse performance than Ireland in terms of the percentage of our workforce that did not have secondary education. A total of 32% of our workforce did not go to secondary school. This is an overwhelmingly important and frightening point. In addition, the report of the expert group on future skills needs, to which Senator Quinn referred earlier, made the point that 14% of the age cohort between 25 and 64 is involved in continuous learning, while the equivalent figure in the UK is 35%. If we view all these figures together we can see the major change that must be made in terms of education.

The recent report on the national skills strategy mentioned that, if things do not change soon, around 200,000 people in our economy will find themselves unskilled for the type of employment being generated. There are 500,000 people whose skills need to be improved if they are to contribute to the economy. When I consider the decisions made by politicians of all parties in the history of our country, I think of the effect of the changes made by former Taoiseach, Seán Lemass, and the actions of Garrett FitzGerald on our economy and our society. The same urgency is needed now in planning the future education of our workforce.

It strikes me that we always seem to leave the important points until the end of a speech.