Feargal Quinn (Independent)

I wish to share time with Senator Mullen. I welcome the Minister of State and I am delighted he is present because this issue is a challenge. I have spent the past three Mondays at different Retail Excellence Ireland training sessions in Dublin, Limerick and Cork, which were fascinating. A total of 60 people attended each session. They had been employed in other professions and they replied to an advertisement offering a free opportunity to learn about retailing. Some were architects, engineers, students and unemployed but they wanted to get into the retail industry because they said there is a hunger out there to learn. The Minister of State can ensure the enthusiasm for learning is embraced. It is encouraging that the education qualifications of our labour force have increased dramatically in recent years. A total of 186,300 more people had a third level qualification last year than in 2005. Now about 20% of the Irish workforce have higher educational qualifications. The figures also show that the percentage of secondary students staying on to leaving certificate has risen to 84%, the highest level ever.

One of the areas that excited me was the involvement I had in the leaving certificate applied. I know that Senator Jerry Buttimer shares the same enthusiasm I have for this. The leaving certificate applied identifies talents, skills and intelligence other than those that are measured by the traditional leaving certificate. People who failed the leaving certificate, perhaps because they were not good at reading and writing, could be brilliant at oration, speaking and listening. Such students were never identified, apart from some minor exceptions in the traditional leaving certificate system. I have known that many people who have had that opportunity have blossomed and grown, so let us not tie ourselves down with the old traditional skills and academic qualifications formula when there are so many other opportunities to be explored.

I spoke recently at one of the DIT campuses. It was very interesting, and Senator Brendan Ryan made the point about a very large number of those attending these courses not being Irish-born. I was told one of the challenges facing this particular course was that the Irish attendees, because they were getting it free of charge, did not seem to value it that much and the drop-out rate from this cohort was very high, whereas the non-Irish valued it to such an extent that they stayed. It seems to me that one of the difficulties we must address is to do with the student who opts out of college having formerly been enthusiastic about the course he or she was taking. In my company over the years we asked people to pay for attending a course. They did not have to qualify but if they completed a course, they would get a refund. There are areas such as that about which we could do something.

I am concerned that the update on the national skills strategy shows that an educational divide is opening up with slower progress being made in upskilling early school leavers and those on the live register for a year or longer. We must also address the problem of those previously working in areas where jobs have been lost, such as construction, manufacturing, wholesaling and retailing. The Minister of State has touched on this but I would remind him that much more could be done in that area. There is an ambition to learn and succeed if we can only find a way to ensure those who are in danger of being left behind get to grab their opportunities to learn and develop themselves to get work.

I always laugh at this debate on a Wednesday night where the Government says "That Seanad Éireann commends the Government" and the Opposition automatically says "That Seanad Éireann condemns the Government" and substitutes everything else in the motion. Let us work together on this one at some point or other.