Seanad debates

Tuesday, 19 October 2010

Restructuring of Vocational Education Committees: Statements

 

6:00 am

Photo of Seán HaugheySeán Haughey (Dublin North Central, Fianna Fail)

In arriving at this configuration, officials of the Department of Education and Skills also took account of other factors such as the total area covered by a VEC, the distance between extremities of the area, the road network within the area and the alignment of other regional structures. In addition, officials also took into consideration the fact that County Donegal is geographically isolated and is a large county in itself. A merger with any of the smaller adjacent VECs would have limited the Government's scope to create other viable units in Connacht and-or north Leinster.

Senators asked why north Tipperary and south Tipperary were put in different groupings rather than together. The revised new structures aim to bring each VEC area up to a critical mass of activity level. Where possible, this requires a budget as close as possible to €50 million. In addition, the officials in the Department of Education and Skills took account of other factors such as the total area covered by a VEC, the distance between extremities of the area, the road network within the area and the alignment of other regional structures. In this new configuration, the combination of the existing Clare and Tipperary North Riding VECs currently has an operating budget of €56 million. It is already linked with Clare in other regional structures, such as the mid-western regional drugs task force and the Mid-West Regional Authority, and contains the hub town of Ennis in County Clare and the linked gateway of Limerick and Shannon. The combination of the existing County Tipperary South Riding VEC along with Waterford city and county VECs also creates an entity which has an operating budget of €56 million. County Waterford and Tipperary South Riding are already linked in the other regional structures such as the south-eastern regional drugs task force and the South-East Regional Authority and contains the gateway town of Waterford.

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